


Just Another Business Day

by Miny21



Category: MCSM, Minecraft (Video Game), Minecraft: Story Mode - Fandom, Yuppie Psycho (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Horror, First Day At Work, Gen, Horror, Survival Horror, business horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:07:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 55,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25646296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miny21/pseuds/Miny21
Summary: As Jesse's first day at the prestigious SintraCorp unfolds, the deeper, rotten parts of the company make themselves known.Now all that he has to do is the impossible, he has to Kill the Witch.
Comments: 25
Kudos: 15





	1. First Day at the Company

Jesse tugged at his shirt’s collar, trying to loosen it just enough so he could breathe. Too bad it was of no use, the tie remained just as tight around his neck. Next time he should ask it to be tied just a little looser, so it won’t feel like a noose

Sighing softly, Jesse instead took his attention to the world outside of the train windows. The countryside gave way to houses of all sizes, only for them to be taken over by apartment blocks and skyscrapers. He was here, he was The Capital… Never once in his life had Jesse expected to come here, even less so for a job offer.

It all came in the mail one day, a red plain envelope with his name on it and a seal that everybody could recognize.

It was his mom the one that found it. Just seeing the seal was enough to leave her without breath. His dad nearly followed suit, nearly crying when he saw the envelop, but he still had some strength in him to yell for Jesse and Reuben to come down and see what Jesse had received.

Jesse, however, didn’t recognize the seal at the first glance. So he opened the envelope and read the contents of the letter. It took a moment for him to understand what was written there. He read the words over and over again, until Reuben took a look at the words and asked the magical question.

“Jesse”, he asked, his voice full of curiosity, “what’s SintraCorp?”

SintraCorp.

One of the biggest companies in the country, if not the entire world! Thousands place their job applications every hiring season and out of those maybe twenty of them get the job. For him to receive job offer, it was like a dream come true – no, a miracle! And at the SintraCorp’s headquarters even!

The last few days were a blur, Jesse had to prepare for his first job, which meant a nice suit, some nice shoes and a nice tie. Another hit in their pitiful budget. He would have had his dad’s older suit, but it was too late for that, he turned out to be taller than his dad, didn’t he? And that they wouldn’t allow him to go to the new job with an old barely hanging by a tread suit.

On the other hand, the new suit looked perfect on him! The dark blue jacket and pants assorted well with his messy brown hair.

The first thing Jesse could remember that wasn’t just a jumble of memories was him hugging his mother, his father and little Reuben before boarding the train to the Capital. He’d see them again, that’s for sure, but until then… He’d miss them and they would miss him, he’s gonna have to buy a apartment in the Capital, but he should be able to send them money and visit.

But as the train went on, all the good nervousness Jesse felt from receiving the letter until boarding the train melted away into anxieties. What if it was a fake? What if it was a prank? A scam? The letter looked legit, but the doubts continued to creep up his mind still. And if the letter was legit, what next?

What if he wasn’t good enough for the job? The letter didn’t specify what job was he hired for, so he was left at the company’s mercy. What if he wasn’t made for the job? The last thing Jesse wanted to do was to disappoint his bosses, even though that was a pretty obvious possibility.

Jesse tugged at his collar, once again uselessly trying to loosen the grip the tie had upon him. Knowing he was beat, Jesse stopped and turned his attention at the other train passengers. All of them in suits and ties, their suitcase ready and always by their side.

But they all looked so… tired. So tired of going into the city for work. The train was almost empty when he boarded it, now it was packed full, with just enough space to breathe. Not that it bothered the others, for as tired as they seemed, they looked very used to their situation, none of the faces Jesse saw had any signs of discomfort, just tired acceptance.

He once wondered what life in the big city would be like. This… wasn’t in any of his expectations, not even close to it. Swallowing the knot in his throat, Jesse feared for his fortune, what if he ended up like these people, what if he were to be eaten by the corporate life?

With that sobering thought in mind, Jesse pushed himself of the seat, walking towards the train door. His stop was in five minutes, better get a nice place to get out from as early as possible.

\---

If he were to be honest, SintraCorp’s building wasn’t quite what he had expected. He expected something… bigger, like a skyscraper.

Not a simple ten story building.

And not to mention that it was surrounded by much taller buildings making the SintraCorp’s HQ look positively tiny.

But, to be fair, it was also the first corporate building in this zone, the one that started it all, a fact that gave the building a different air, one Jesse couldn’t quite place. All that he could say is that the building was more than what was seen first glance.

Jesse then took a moment to berate himself. Well, of course it had that air, it was SintraCorp’s headquarters after all! One of the biggest companies in the world, after all…

Jesse looked at the building once again, the same doubts he had in the train resurfacing here. What if this was just a prank? What if he wasn’t qualified enough for the job? Many thoughts of this theme were running through his head at light speed, too fast for Jesse to contain them.

One look at the building sent a cold wave down Jesse’s spine. Suddenly, he was the small one. All of his instincts screamed at him to run away, to go back home, this wasn’t the place for him, but that wasn’t a solution. He just couldn’t go back home with an empty hand and a tail between his legs. He would never forgive himself from giving up so easily, even if his family would.

But there was something more, something deep in his mind, telling him that he couldn’t leave even if he wanted to. But not why. That thought was something that silenced the voice. Either it had no idea, or it didn’t want to tell him.

Shaking the thoughts away, Jesse threw a hard look at the building and breathed in deeply. Well, time to meet destiny.

\---

Jesse was immediately hit by a soft smell of cigarettes.

“Wasn’t there a law that stopped smoking inside buildings?” thought Jesse, scrunching his nose and bringing his hand over his nose for a second. Not that it did any good. “Or they just don’t care about it.” Jesse found out the source of the smell, a man around his age, maybe slightly older, in a much more expensive looking suit, near the elevator doors, smoking a cigarette with a relaxed, almost bored expression.

For such a prestigious building, the lobby was simple, just a couple of couches that have seen better days, a long coffee table with a few magazines and a couple of ashtrays. Of course.

There was another person in the lobby other than Jesse himself and the other guy. A dark-skinned woman, also around his age, reading some papers. Jesse stepped forward towards the woman but stopped before he could make the second step. Whatever was she reading, it must have been very important, as she was mumbling words at supersonic speeds.

Jesse reached the man just in time for him to take another drag of smoke. Exhaling, he looked over to Jesse, from top to bottom.

“Uh, hello there, I’m Jesse,” he said with a shaky voice, offering his hand for a handshake. “Nice to meet you, um…?” The man chuckled and shook Jesse’s hand, the boy barely keeping up with the solid handshake.

“Likewise”, the man let go of Jesse, relieving him of the tight hold. “I presume it’s your first day here, is it not?” the man chuckled again.

“Yeah, yeah it is”, Jesse said, chuckling weakly.

“Oh, no need to worry about, I understand how it’s like. Especially to a company like SintraCorp”, the man looked surprised for a second. “Oh, I nearly forgot! Where are my manners?” the man shook his head. “You said your name is Jesse, right?” Jesse nodded. “I’m Aiden.”

“Oh. Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Aiden.”

“Say, Jesse, I’ve been wondering, where did you get your suit?” Aiden rubbed his chin as he took in all the details of Jesse’s suit. “I like the color, but there’s something about it I don’t understand. What brand is it? I don’t recognize it.”

“Oh, I – I don’t know. My mom took it from a supermarket. They didn’t tell me from where or how much did it cost, just that it would be perfect on me.”

“The supermarket?”

“Mhm.”

Aiden squinted at Jesse, gears turning into his head. There was something else about Jesse.

“I’m sorry to ask, but what class are you? You aren’t class A or B, that’s for sure, maybe class C?” whatever look Aiden was giving Jesses, it sure wasn’t a good one.

“Oh, well, I’m class G.”

“Class G, huh?” Aiden threw a look at Jesse, nodded twice, and breathed in deeply. “What the hell does a piece of trash like you think of doing here at SintraCorp?!” the outburst was so sudden that Jesse took a step back. “SintraCorp is only for the most prestigious and highly standing classes, not some trash like you who would tarnish its reputation! Get out of my sigh before I get angry!”

“Wha-What?”

“GET OUT!!”

Jesse wanted nothing more than to do as he was told, the last thing he wanted was to see if Aiden would make good on his promise. That, and Jesse wanted to keep a good distance between them as possible

“Hey, you! What do you think you’re doing!” Both Jesse and Aiden turned towards the new voice. The woman has long since left her papers on the table, raising herself to join the two men. “Aiden, was it?”

“To whoever it might concern, yes.”

“Would you leave the kid alone?! What has he done to you to receive such reaction?”

“Do you need to get your ears cleaned?” Aiden took a step towards the woman. “Haven’t you heard? He is a class G! He has no reason to be here. SintraCorp hires only the crème de la creme. Not trash like him. I, for example, am much better example of who should be working at SintraCorp. Class A for three generation.” Aiden finished with a smile, fixing his tie.

“Well, I am class D and they accepted my application too!” Aiden gaped for a moment, just to close his mouth and glare daggers at the woman. “I could show you the letter, if so desire. And I wasn’t called for a janitorial job, if that ever crossed your mind.”

“Hmph, very well then”, Aiden turned his head away from the woman. “I believe you. Him, however”, he pointed at Jesse, “I will make it so you will be my personal janitor. Mark my words!”

“Mr. Aiden, you asked to enter the elevator.”

A robotic voice filled the lobby, pulling the attention from Jesse towards the elevator doors. It took a good minute, but with a ding, the elevators doors opened, beckoning Aiden in.

“Hah, just in the nick of time. You see this?” Aiden pointed towards the floor numbers above the elevator doors. “It’s an automated system based on worth. In simpler words for you, the system knows on which floor to drop you, based on whatever job the company thinks you’ll be worth for. The higher the floor, better the job”, Aiden entered the elevator, facing the other two, but looking at Jesse in particular. “I’ll be waving you from the 10th floor. Ta-Ta, Jesse.”

And with that, the elevator doors closed, taking Aiden higher and higher in the company ladder until it reached the floor he was meant to be.

The second floor.

“Well, it sure showed you how worthy you are.” Jesse didn’t realize he voiced his thoughts until the woman next to him giggled.

“Good one, kid.” The stopped giggling. “Ah, sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to sound it like that. You don’t seem to be older than me. You said your name was Jesse, right?”

“Yeah, I’m Jesse, nice to meet you.”

“Pleasure to meet you too, I’m Olivia.” Olivia hurriedly went back to the couch, taking her papers and putting them in a briefcase much like Jesse’s. “Since Aiden was called, we might be too, any minute now.” Olivia then let herself slump on the couch, with one hand waving in front of her face, trying to cool herself off. “I’ll admit Jesse, it was a bit scary to talk like that to Aiden, but I also couldn’t leave you like that there. I just hope it didn’t make anything worse.”

“No no, I’ve got to thank you, Olivia, without you who knows what might have Aiden done to me?” Jesse looked at the floor numbers with a forlorn expression. “Although, he might be right about me having to be a janitor. I don’t even know why I came here.”

“Well, you were hired, were you not?”

“Yeah, but for what?

“Aiden was right about one thing; the company chooses a job for you. You are class G, aren’t you?” with a flinch, Jesse nodded. “Well, it doesn’t matter as much as Aiden would think. I mean, there was been people hired from your class and lower if they had a good education or if they showed any particular talent.”

“Thing is, I don’t think I have. I barely finished basic education, and I wouldn’t call myself having any particular talents.” While Jesse found himself as having less hope, Olivia just shrugged.

“Ok, so? That doesn’t mean you’re nothing for the company, everyone has a use here.” Jesse turned towards her with a raised eyebrow

“That sounded ominous.” Olivia made an O with her mouth, then turning into a sheepish smile.

“Yeah, you’re right”, Olivia chuckled, while rubbing the back of her head. “I should’ve worded it better, but you get what I’m saying. You’re here for a reason Jesse. And I’m pretty sure it’s a good one.”

Jesse took a deep breath, straightening his shoulders only to slump again on the couch.

“Maybe you’re right.” Jesse sighed. “Thanks for the peep talk, Olivia, it helped.”

“You’re welcome. Hey, if we’re going to be colleagues, might as well help each other.” Jesse chuckled, and opened his mouth to agree, only for them to be interrupted by another ding.

“Ms. Olivia,” said the robotic voice over the intercom, “you are asked to enter the elevator.”

“Well, here I go,” with briefcase in hand, Olivia entered the elevator. “Hope I’ll see you soon Jesse. Take care and good luck!”

With a smile, Jesse waved back to Olivia, just in time for the elevator doors to close. Slowly, the elevator went up, each floor number lighting up, only to move up onto the next one. Lobby, first floor, second floor, third and fourth. There is stopped.

“Heh, nice work, Olivia.” Jesse mumbled to himself, after which he moves his attention to the small coffee table between the two couches. More exactly, on the magazines about the SintraCorp itself. “Now that I think about it, I know nothing of SintraCorp.” with a touch of embarrassment in mind, Jesse picked one of magazines, one with a guy on the building’s roof.

Well, this one was a bit old, from five years ago. SIntraCorp was just recovering from an unexpected depression and was once again gaining traction in some computer related field. Jesse couldn’t understand much of the technical lingo, but it sure did look impressive. The rest of the pages were talking about the same thing, new innovations in robotics and computers.

In rest, on the table were magazines just like this one. Some from the same year, some older, and few pamphlets, most of them about the opportunities from working at SintraCorp. The raise to class A was the one that caught his eye. That was too good to be true. Too bad he couldn’t raise his family to class A alongside him.

With that in mind, Jesse raised himself from the couch looking at the elevator doors. He hasn’t been called yet.

Maybe the whole letter was a scam, maybe Aiden was right.

The door was right there.

And, yet, Jesse couldn’t find it himself to leave. Not yet at least.

“Maybe, just maybe…” Jesse thought while running a finger over the briefcase’s lock. “Well, I might as well try.”

Jesse pulled out the letter of acceptance at SintraCorp and showed it to the camera above the elevator doors. He held it up next to his face and waved towards the camera. The camera looked dead straight at the doors Jesse entered through and didn’t move at all, but, in that moment, it somehow felt like it was staring directly at Jesse.

“Um, hello? I have – I have this letter saying I’ve been hired? Is it – Is it genuine? Hello? Is someone there?” but he received no answer. With a deep sigh, Jesse put the letter back into his suitcase and rubbed his face. “That worked well”, he mumbled, watching the camera.

Jesse stood there for another good minute, waiting just in case, something, anything would happen, but nothing, the door didn’t open, there was no voice calling him to the elevator.

With little to lose and nothing to gain, Jesse turned towards the floor and walked towards the exit.

Only for the elevator door to open with a ding before he could make the second step.

There was no call, but the doors were open. The elevator was open and empty, waiting for someone to fill it. And there Jesse stood, watched over by an immobile security camera as he weighted his opinions.

Something clearly wasn’t right here, but what? This was a simple, if you could call the HQ of a company that, building, there was nothing to be worried about. And yet…

On the hand, Jesse couldn’t just leave. The elevator wouldn’t have come down for him without a reason. And if the pamphlets were true, this would be an opportunity one couldn’t just throw away just like that.

With his mind on his mom, dad and little brother, Jesse stepped into the elevator, turned to face the doors and hoped that it would take him to a good floor.

It didn’t take long for the door to close, slowly replacing the lobby with a distorted reflection of himself surrounded by grey. Slowly but surely, the elevator climbed higher and higher, passing the first floor, the second floor, the third and the fourth floor, stopping for a second.

And just for a second, as it went even higher, fifth floor, sixth floor, seventh –

The elevator went dark.

“Wha-What is going on?! Hello?! Is someone there?!”

Jesse’s pleas were, of course, unanswered. But before he could call away for help, the lights came back. The emergency lights, red as blood. Jesse breathed in deeply, trying not to panic. Panic would do no good, yes siree, no good, no good at all.

Maybe the button panel had an emergency button or something? Or maybe he could call for help from him phone?

Ideas that were of no use, as the elevator started his ascension once again, shaking and climbing with a speed that made Jesse sick at the stomach. For every floor passed he heard another ding.

Seventh, ding.

Eight, ding.

Ninth, ding

Tenth…

The elevator slowed down, it stopped shaking, and changed the lights to a much calmer whiter lights, the closer it was to the tenth floor. There it finally stopped giving Jesse one last ding. The doors slowly opened, changing the scene from the distorted reflection of Jesse to the black wall of the tenth floor.

Shaking his head at what happened, Jesse looked around at the elevator and ran a hand through his hair. That was… one hell of an elevator ride. Maybe next time he would take the stairs.

And with that in mind, Jesse breathed in deeply, and exited the elevator. It was time to see what was in store for him.

Wait – he was on the tenth floor?!


	2. The CEO's Office

Ok. Ok ok. Breathe, Jesse, breathe. Yes, you are on the tenth floor, but that’s no reason to have your legs turn to jelly. There must be a reason for which you are called on the tenth floor, maybe the CEO needs something special that only you can do? Maybe Olivia was right, maybe he had a talent!

But still doesn’t explain why was he called to the tenth floor!

Wait, the CEO must be on the tenth floor. If he was called here, the CEO must’ve been the one that called him here! He must not let him wait any more than necessary. He lost more than just enough time by hugging his knees next to the elevator doors, his back nearly glued to the tower that housed the elevator box.

Jesse got himself of the floor, dusted his backside and passed the tower’s corner with a smile he hoped to be as natural as possible, ready to meet the CEO.

Only to be hit by a strong metallic smell and no CEO.

The room was large, long rather than wide, painted all black with white accents where the wall was hitting the floor and the ceiling. In the middle there were two white couches, between them a coffee table with some knicks and knacks strewn upon it. Next to the walls were a couple of tables with modern, minimalist art: cubes, circles and cones of different sizes.

And at the end, the jewel of the room, was the CEO desk. Huge, wide enough to nearly touch both sides of the room, but still letting space for a person to pass through, cream colored with golden accents on the corner and sides and an intricate golden design on the front. A lone, old but still looking comfortable combination of a desk chair and armchair standing behind it, waiting for its occupant.

And behind it, a giant screen, one that truly stretched from one side of the room to the other, showing nothing but static. Either broken or due to a lack of signal, the constant static scratched Jesse’s ears. But he still trudged along, ignoring what he had hoped that was just red paint, with just a strong metallic odor, on the minimalist statues.

There was another thing that caught his attention.

On the screen, written in big red dripping letter were three simple words.

**_KILL THE WITCH_ **

“K-Kill what?” Jesse dreaded coming closer towards the writing in the screen, the smell of metal being stronger than ever. This must be red paint, yeah, this must be red paint. Metallic red paint, yes! At least that’s what he had hoped it to be… “Wait, what’s this?” on the desk there were a couple of papers, which on a closer look turned out to be Jesse’s contract. “Mr. Jesse Fadden, by signing this contract you consent being a part of SintraCorp’s workforce. The contract is non-negotiable and will be completed conforming the terms detailed below and/or lawful termination. Upon completion of the terms, you will be raised towards Class A status and will receive a bonus of 100 000 credits – “,

Jesse stopped his reading dead in his tracks once he saw the bonus. One hundred thousand credits! That would make him rich! Would make his family rich! Now they wouldn’t worry so much about the bills and the debt and raising Reuben –

Wait, wait, wait, this is just way too good to be true. Just like that? Raising him and a big bonus? What is his contract all about?

A short look through all of the pages gave Jesse all that he needed to know.

“I can’t make head or tails of it.” Jesse murmured as he ran a hand through his hair, trying to make sense of the legal and corporate lingo.

This was just too good to be true, but still…

Jesse took a long hard look at the pros and cons of signing the contract, and the pros outweighed the cons.

He took the pen from the stand and signed the contract.

“This is for you, mum, dad, Reuben.” He though as he wrote the letters one by one on the dotted line.

The moment he placed the pen back into its pedestal, Jesse sighed deeply, in his mind hoping he had made the right choice.

A small shiver came upon him, starting from the top of his head ending at the bottom of his feet. There was nowhere from where the chill could come from and yet Jesse could feel it had slithering upon him like a snake. He was alone, nobody around and no way for people to enter other than through the elevator.

Well, there were the emergency stairs, but the black and yellow tape in an X over the door told him more than enough.

Jesse shook his head, trying to clear his mind of the weird sensation that took hold of him. For the most part, it worked, or at least that’s what it seemed like.

“Alright… Now what?” he mumbled, looking over the contract. He must go somewhere on another floor for work, since there was no mention of him being the CEO. Now that would be an interesting thought.

The fifth floor. There was he supposed to go. It was written literally on the last page, “Upon reach of the fifth floor, you will receive additional instructions.”. Well, at least this line was clear. But what additional instructions? The rest of the contract was just as clear as before, a jumble of corporate lingo.

Jesse sighed and took the contract with him in his briefcase, you can never be too sure with this stuff.

With one last look at the blood covered screen, the static still grinding on his eardrums, Jesse left the CEO’s office towards the elevator, entering it and hitting the button for the fifth floor.

The doors closed behind him, starting his descent towards the fifth floor. He took a step back to turn around to face the reflective doors, only to hear as his foot stepped on something crunchy.

A piece of paper that wasn’t here before. Jesse’s head snapped upwards as he heard something like metal on metal and saw nothing, the ceiling hatch was soundly closed, nobody entered, and nobody exited the elevator. Or, at the very least, that’s what he hoped it was.

As for the paper, it was nothing special, no message or anything like that. Well, there was a watermark there, a big S but… stylized after a snake? For a second, he thought this was SintraCorp’s logo, but the snake shot down the idea.

A ding pulled Jesse out of his thought. Ah, here he was, the fifth floor. Jesse gulped down the knot formed in his neck and left the elevator. Well, his job shouldn’t be that hard, after all he was just on the fifth floor.


	3. Time for some work in the Office

“Hello there, friend!”

“AAH!” this time Jesse wasn’t ashamed that he jumped a good foot in the air when an unknown voice appeared in his ear.

“Ah, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” The voice came from a red headed, middle aged man, with a beard and moustache of the same color. “I’m Soren, you must be the newest hireling, are you not?”

“Huh? Oh, I mean, yeah, that’s me! I’m Jesse, it’s a pleasure to meet you, I guess?” with an embarrassed smile, Jesse gave his hand out for a handshake, while he rubbed the back of his head with the other.

“Nervous for a first day?” Soren shook Jesse’s head with a vigor that nearly threw the younger man off his feet. “Haha, don’t worry, my friend, it’s alright, we’ve all been through it. By the end of the day you’ll be just like the rest of us!”

“Oh, I – I guess that sound fine, thanks for the encouragement.”

“Don’t fret about it, after all we are workmates.”

“Wait, we are?”

“Absolutely! Come with me, I must show you what is going on in this company after all!”

Without a word of warning, Soren turned on his heel and started walking away from Jesse. Jesse took a moment to realize what was happening and didn’t waste any time following him. Just when he was ready to call after him, Jesse knocked into another coworker full force, more than enough to throw the both of them to the floor.

Jesse was the first one on his feet, apologies coming from his mouth faster than raindrops in a thunderstorm.

Only to find them unheard. The man didn’t even look at Jesse, he didn’t look at anything in particular, just only straight forward. Even then, that was an unfocused look, the man just gazed into nothingness. Like clockwork, the man raised himself on his feet and continued to shuffle onwards, directionless.

“What the… What is wrong with him?” murmured Jesse, weighting if he should follow him or if he should go after Soren. Wait, where was Soren?

“Ah, looks like you’ve had your first meeting with an office drone.” Soren was right behind him, shaking his head. “Give them no mind, they are harmless. Well, most of them, you wouldn’t want to annoy the ones from the fourth floor.”

“Wait, what? What’s with him?”

“Oh, like I said, you don’t need to worry about them. They the ones who got too deep into their office work.” Soren shrugged and turned to leave again. “Well, Jesse, this wasn’t supposed to be in our introductory tour, but, hey, you’ve learned something about the company, no?”

“Yeah, you could say that.” he said, following Soren.

An awkward silence soon fell upon them. Well upon Jesse at least, Soren didn’t seem one bit perturbed by the lack of conversation.

“Ah, here we are!” Soren broke the silence by presenting Jesse a door. The younger man raised an eyebrow at the door, only then seeing that above the door was a mettalic plaque with the letter E inscribed upon it. “This is our office!” Soren went ahead, opened the door and entered, looking back to beckon Jesse in. “C’mon, c’mon, don’t be shy!”

With the other eyebrow raised alongside the first and his lips thinned, Jesse entered the office.

Honestly, it wasn’t very impressive, just a simple, four cubicle office with a some filing cabinets and a water coller. The thing that surprised Jesse the most was the solitary computer on the back desk that couldn’t be described as anything other than ancient.

“I can see how amazed you are to be here.” Sore chuckled. “Come with me, you can’t work in an office without a classic drink. A coffee! You do drink coffee, right?” in that moment, Jesse knew that he wouldn’t see Soren as worried as he was now ever again.

“Yeah. Sometimes.” Jesse made a so-and-so sign with his hand.

“Good, good.” Soren exhaled much more at ease and nodded sagely. “You can’t live in an office without coffee, the numbers and Excel files will drive you into such a boredom that you might as well fall asleep on the keyboard.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. Office work is boring work, that’s why we don’t work here!”

“Wait, what?! W-What do you mean by that? What is somebody comes and there’s no work done!?”

“Oh, my friend, there’s nobody coming, you have nothing to worry about.”

“There’s nobody – “

The door opened, in coming a larger man in a dark green suit and no tie, revealing that his white shirt had it's first two butons open, holding a couple packets of coffee powder. It scanned the room with a small smile, one disappeared the moment his eyes fell on Jesse and on Soren.

“Axel, just in time!” Soren called out towards the larger man, Axel apparently. The smile reappeared on Axel’s face, a bit more forced than before. “Looks like we’ve run out of coffee if you’ve brought some more.” Axel nodded slowly and brought them towards the coffee maker.

“Oh, yeah. I went to eat breakfast and saw we were out. I bought a coffee from the cafeteria and I’ve decided to bring some more here.”

“Anyways, Axel, I want to introduce you to our newest workmate, Jesse!”

“Oh, hi, hello! Well, I’m Jesse, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Jesse again, stretched out his hand towards Axel. Axel thinned his lips, only to smile a forced smile and shook his hand with a surprisingly gentle grip.

“Likewise. And well, you’ve might have already heard my name, but still, I’m Axel.” Axel let go of Jesse and continued onwards towards the coffee maker, placing the coffee packets next to it and preparing to make some coffee. “So, Jesse, righ?” Axel looked back at him, just in time to see Jesse nod. “Uh, what some coffee?”

“Yeah, sure, thanks Axel.”

“No problem, Jesse.” While he couldn’t hear it, Jesse could see from how his shoulders moved that Axel sighed. “And you, Soren?”

“Of course, my friend, I would like one.”

“Alright then, two coffees coming right up!” Axel suddenly straightened his back and turned towards Jesse with an embarrassed look on his face. “Umnm, I didn’t know there would be somebody new in here today, so I didn’t bring any sugar or milk. I hope you don’t mind black coffee.”

“No no no, it’s alright! I don’t mind it at all!”

“Heh, there’s no need for that, Jesse.” Axel brought out three cups from a filing cabinet. Just in time, seeing as the coffee maker’s cup was nearly full. “The cafeteria is stocked full by the way, you’re free to take anything as long as it has no name written on it.” While talking, Axel filled each cup.

“Really?” Jesse took a random white cup, raising an eyebrow at Axel’s words. “That doesn’t sound right.”

“Well, if they wanted it just for them, they should have written their name on it,” interjected Soren. “Now it’s fair game for everyone, should they want some. And don’t worry about it, Jesse, nobody would care anyways.”

“Here he’s right,” Axel murmured, taking a sip of coffee. “Well, it was nice meeting you, Jesse, I’ll be at my desk if you ever need something.”

“Thanks!” Jesse raised his cup towards Axel, then took a big sip out of it, recoiling at how bitter it was.

“Hah, you’ll get used to it in no time, my friend.”

“If you say so,” Jesse smacked his lips, trying to get rid of the bitter taste, but it was of no use. “So, what do I need to do exactly here?” _Outside of killing a witch here, somehow._

“What? Oh, don’t tell me already want to work here? I was ready to play with the printer with you! After all, you would never know how an office life is without printing your face or your posterior.”

“Uhhh…” Jesse threw a look of thinly veiled disgust at the printer. You mean the printer was used to print images of your a – “

“C’mon, Soren, leave the kid alone,” Axel called out, rolling his eyes. “No, Jesse, we don’t. Last thing we want to do is to break the glass with my giant ass.” Axel chuckled for a moment. “However, I won’t deny we nearly depleted our paper supplies printing random stuff.”

“See, Jesse? All in good fun.” Soren all but grabbed and dragged Jesse towards the printer. “Wait a second, we’re out of paper!”

“We’re out?!” with a hint of panic in his voice, Axel raised himself from his desk, but Soren interrupted him.

“Jesse, I suppose you don’t have some papers in that suitcase of yours? I mean, you do seem prepared for everything.”

“Oh, now that you say it.” Jesse started searching through his suitcase. “I’ve found something on the way here.” He passed the paper with the watermark towards Soren.

There was a spark in Soren’s eyes when the paper was in his hands.

“Witch paper, hmm…” he murmured, loud enough to be heard, but not enough for Jesse to understand him.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?

“Nothing, just thinking how we’ve made our own copyrighted paper here at SintraCorp.” Soren chuckled softly. “Since this is your paper, why don’t you do the honors, Jesse? All you need to do is to insert the paper here and let the printer scan you face. We think there’s no eye damage from the scanner light, but you’re free to close them, if you so wish.” And with that, Soren gave Jesse a shrug, raising the printer cover so the younger man could place his head there.

With the paper and the subject ready to be printed, Jesse gave Soren the signal to press the start button. In less than two seconds, the printer groaned to life and a bright white light started coming from his left, blinding him for a moment, then it passed over his face, and ended in his right side of the printer screen. But it didn’t stop there, the light came back to the place it started.

“Oh man,” Jesse pulled his head out of the printer, blinking quickly and rubbing his eyes, trying to get rid of the black spots plaguing his eyes.

“Yes, my friend, that was the reaction of many before you,” Soren pulled out the Jesse’s printed face, and chuckled, softly tracing his fingers over the snake symbol.

“And what about work? What do I need to do here, exactly?” with his eyes still blurry, Jesse looked around at the four cubicles, Axel was at his desk already, mashing on the keyboard.

“What? After all of this, don’t tell me you already want to begin working on the boring parts of the corporate life?”

“Well, my contract did say that I would receive my assignment here… I think? It was something along those line.”

“Ah, very well,” Soren’s shoulders slumped, defeated. “I saw you were eyeing that old computer next to the printer. That computer is older than you by 20 years, and I might or might not have been born around when it was built.”

“Wow, I mean, just – wow. Why is it still here though? I’ve heard that the company has modernized itself many times, why is that still the same?”

“The classic, if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.” Soren shrugged. “And, heh, just because it’s old it doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its own surprises.”

“And because it’s unique,” called Axel from his desk. “It’s an intranet made specifically for the SintraCorp and its computers. They wanted to upgrade it, but, uhhh, the creator died and left no notes.” Axel shrugged and went back to work.

“More or less.” Soren then turned back towards the computer. “See this card inserter?” Jesse nodded. “Good, that’s where you should put your work card so it could be read and so you could enter SintraNet.”

“SintraNet? Well, isn't that a creative – “Jesse’s eyes widened like dinner plates. “Wait, what card? I don’t have a card or anything like that! T-They didn’t tell me anything about having a card!”

“Hmmm,” Soren’s eyes had a glint in them, thinking hard about the situation. “I’ll go talk with our boss for a second, maybe he’ll know why.” Soren place a hand on Jesse’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Jesse, this will be resolved in no time.”

And with that, Soren turned on his heel and went through a door into another room. Huh, he hadn’t seen the door when he first entered, but to be far, there were a couple of filling cabinets blocking the view.

“Hey, Jesse,” whispered Axel loud enough so Jesse could hear him. Once Jesse’s eyes were upon hm, Axel carefully looked to the left and the right, then towards Jesse. “There’s something you need to know – “

But the ringing of a phone interrupted him. It came from a land phone on the desk at the end of the office room, next to the door Soren went through.

Axel thinned his lips and went back to his work, trying to hide behind the half wall that separated the cubicles. Jesse was ready to ask what happened, but the phone ringing once again attracted his attention. He took one last look at Axel, who didn’t look back, and picket up the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Fadden?” Jesse mentally cringed at the voice coming from the speaker, the distortion scratched his ears like nails on a chalkboard.

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“Good. I’ve heard from Soren about the lack of a work card. It seems like there was a mistake in providing it for you. Your card should be in Office D.”

“Alright, I guess. Thank you, sir…” Jesse looked at the speaker, his boss terminated the call. “Hm, that was weird…” he thought, putting the receiver back on the phone. Jesse looked at the door next to him, rubbing his chin. “Why didn’t he come out to say that to myself?” he murmured, before shrugging his shoulders. “Well, he’s our boss, he might have other things on his mind.”

Jesse took another swig of coffee, not the best decision, as the taste still was too bitter for his taste buds. He placed the cup on what he hoped it was his desk, and left towards Office D… wherever it was, now that he thought about it…

“Jesse…,” whispered Axel, without taking his eyes off the screen, just before Jesse could open his eyes. “North side. Be careful.”

Jesse scrunched his eyebrows, but, in the end, he nodded and exited the office.

So, north side. North side of the floor maybe?

Alright, at the moment he was in the hallway holding his office door and the door for another office. In front of him was just a plain cream wall with the occasional framed photo of a landscape. To his right was the elevator tower and another hallway like the one he was in, but with the lights turned off.

Jesse went on forward and passed the corner to the right, around the elevator pillar, Jesse came upon another hallway, going both left and right. On the left were more offices, office A and office B, but no office D.

Other than that, a couple of vending machines, another Out of Service emergency escape door and a wall full of Soren’s mugshot in an Employee of The Month frame.

“Whoa, now that’s impressive,” Jesse passed one of the office drones and took a moment to check out the wall. “Man, this goes back many years. How did he manage it all?” In that moment an office drone lady passed Jesse by, lost and with her mouth agape. Jesse looked at her with a raised eyebrow, his question answered. “Never mind, I get why.”, with a sigh, Jesse continued onwards in his search for Office D.

Well, onto the right part then.

And, well, it didn't take long. Axel was right, this was the place. Office C, then, near the end of the hallway, Office D. The one that had its door blocked by an armchair.

“W-What? Why is it blocked?” Jesse looked around, trying to find some kind of reason why would this office door could be blocked, but here he could find. “Maybe it’s just a prank? I am a newbie here, so maybe – I mean, Soren could do it, he’s the employee of the month for many years by now – Oh, never mind, I just have to find my card and get out, that’s all.” Jesse rested his suitcase on the wall and looked at the armchair with determination.

Only that pushing the armchair out of the way turned out to be harder task than he had expected it to be. Taking a moment to relax on the armchair he had just pushed, and making a mental note of making gym membership, Jesse took his suitcase and turned the doorknob to the office door, finding it unlocked, and entered the dark room that was Office D.

“Great, I can’t see a single thing in here. I can’t even see a light switch here!” he murmured, looking all over the room until his eyes fell upon something written on the floor in red. “Wait, what’s this…?” he murmured, crouching down for a better look. “ _This… is… a… trap…_ Wait, what!?”

But it was too late, the door closed behind him, leaving Jesse alone and blind in the darkness.


	4. Office D

Jesse smashed his fist on the door with all his strength, not hoping to break it down, he knew that he couldn’t, but alert somebody to his location.

“No, no, no, no! Somebody, help! Please, somebody! Help…?” With a last hard punch on the door, Jesse let his head rest on the cool door, dreading what was awaiting him here. With hesitation in his body, turned towards the pitch-black darkness and made the first step – Wait, his phone! He had enough battery for the flashlight!

The light from the screen blinded him for a short second. Blinking quickly to regain his sight, Jesse found the flashlight and turned it on, revealing the run down and dilapidated office. He couldn’t help but gape at the broken and barely standing desks, the floor practically covered in thrown paper, already yellowed from the passing of time.

Unpleasant static entered Jesse’s ears.

A single, thin computer monitor turned on by itself, spewing out static as if this was its only thing meant to do.

Jesse froze, not sure what to think of it. It… just turned on by itself, this isn’t something what computers do. Maybe it was always on, and he moved a hidden mouse? He slowly walked towards the monitor, curious about the phenomena.

Bad idea.

With a speed that Jesse could barely react to, the monitor flew from its desk and smashed into the wall behind Jesse.

“What the - !” it wasn’t the time to gape, for another monitor turned on by itself, this time behind him. With a shriek, Jesse ran, the monitor just barely missing his head. And that wouldn’t be the last one either, this corridor of broken-down desk was filled with such possessed objects, all of them trying to murder him.

And the exit to that corridor finally appeared, the light at the end of the tunnel. Literally, Jesse could see some kind of orange light in the distance. Jesse didn’t know what it meant, and wasn’t sure if he wanted to, but as long as it gets him away from these murderous objects, the better.

Too bad that the corridor wasn’t as merciful to just let him go. Before he knew it, before he could truly escape, Jesse felt how a computer monitor hit him full force in the back, throwing him off his feet and onto the floor.

Raising himself on his elbows and grunting in pain, Jesse realized a horrible thing. His phone! He lost his phone!

But, wait, the flashlight was on! It couldn’t be that hard to find it, right?

Unfortunately, the reality thought otherwise. In the pitch-black darkness, there was no pillar or puddle of light that could point towards Jesse’s phone, the only light here was that light from deeper into the office.

Wait, the orange light! Of course!

Even without his phone, he was close enough, he might be able to reach it and use it to find a way out of here and his phone! And he was close to exiting this corridor of desks, so – No, he couldn’t raise himself up fully, not now at least, what if there were more monitors? He was hit by one when the wasn’t careful, and without light who knows how many there are now here?

Crawling through old papers, pens and pencils, old soda cans and thrown away coffee cups, Jesse finally made it out and could safely climb back on his feet and search around for his phone and for this mysterious light.

With a muffled groan ahead of him, Jesse’s search was finished before it could begin. There, in the middle of the office, surrounded by boxes, papers thrown everywhere and knocked over cabinets, was a man tied with cables to an office chair, in his lap sitting a lit candle, its wick the source of the orange light

“Oh my god, what happened to you!?” Jesse didn’t hesitate to jump to the man’s side, looking over to see if he were able untie him or something! The man couldn’t do much but continue to scream into the piece of cloth that was covering his mouth. “I – I’m trying,” tried Jesse to reassure the man, while pulling every cable he could put his hand on, only making the man to groan even more, “but I can’t find a way to untie you. I’m sorry.” For a moment, the man stopped his muffled scream and nodded towards Jesse. “I suppose you don’t know a way out?”

At this question, the man shook his head. Or, no, he didn’t shake his head, he pointed with it. He pointed towards something on the office wall. Jesse tried to take the candle off the man’s lap, but, to his surprise, he found out that he couldn’t. No matter how much he pulled, it was like it was stuck. Kneeling down next to him, Jesse found that the reason why it was stuck was nothing he could have expected.

The candle was fused to the man’s legs, right two or three centimeters above the knee. No, it wasn’t fused, it grew out of his legs. The base was grey like his trousers, the rest was some sort of pinkish white. Jesse couldn’t help but turn his eyes towards the man with a shocked expression. The man, didn’t look back, he just looked on with empty eyes and slumped shoulders.

“Looks, m-m-maybe we could help you somehow?” said Jesse getting back on his feet, shaking from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. The man just looked on, and just twitched his head once more towards the office wall.

Jesse, still haunted by this discovery, swallowed the knot formed in his throat and grabbed the chair, pushing towards the location pointed by the man.

There, hidden in the dark, it was a vent. Even with the candle’s light, he couldn’t see much of it, but it seemed surprisingly large. More than enough for a man to crawl in there.

This was his way out? Compared to movies, but aren’t those dangerous in real life?

And yet, on the other hand, what other choice did he have?

However, he wasn’t the only one who thought about it. Somebody else before him build a makeshift staircase out of solid looking cardboard boxes and desk parts.

Now all that remained was to find his phone, wherever it was…

A soft ringing sound came out of the darkness, leaving Jesse break into a cold sweat. That was his ringtone, and not only that, but it came from the opposite side where he came from, it came from deeper into the darkness.

For a second Jesse was tempted to leave it behind, but everything important was on it. Both accounts and personal photos. Not only that, but it cost a fortune for mom and dad to buy it for him, he couldn’t just leave it like that.

Grabbing the chair with a bone white hand, Jesse went towards the ringing.

He passed under an arch of filling cabinets, held up on by hopes and barely holding physics, took a sharp turn to the left and went onwards in a tight corridor whose fallen cabinets were making the hallways feel even more suffocating. The metallic smell hitting him like a tsunami wave just made it worse.

Face to face with such a scene, Jesse couldn’t help but stop and gape like a fish on dry land.

Now he found out why was this office closed and where the workers went.

Here.

They were still here, they never left. They were tied up high by their legs, their arms left dandling uselessly as the blood from their cut necks once flowed freely forming large pools under them. Some were old, dried and cracked. But others, others were fresh, as if the blood was here for not even more than a day.

And the phone was ringing, ringing and ringing, calling for Jesse. Jesse went on forwards, through the pools towards his phone. Slow and steady breaths were his words, his eyes looking straight ahead like an arrow, never once darting to the blood on the walls, never once looking at the dandling bodies that surrounded him like a forest of hanged men.

And there he saw it, the light of his phone as it flashed with the ringing, calling for him. The corridor was too tight, too small, too suffocating for his to pass through, and so he went forward, just enough so he could grab it from under the office chair.

The number was unknown.

Jesse accepted the call.

On the other side there was just static.

On his side something was moving. Thrashing. Something like metal on metal. The tied man screamed, screamed for Jesse to move, the piece of cloth sealing his mouth turning those screams into muffled groans.

On the other side of the call, Jesse heard something. A hiss. A chuckle. A whisper.

“Jesseee…” he heard on the other side.

And then all hells broke loose.

Jesse had just enough time to look, too see the monster.

It was a man. No, it _was_ a man, a long time ago. Now it was on all fours, naked and bald, with eyes that glowed bright red in the poor candlelight. On his back there was a filing cabinet, tied to him with cables like the ones that tied the man to the chair.

No. It wasn’t like that. The cables that tied the cabinet to the man were too loose, they dangled on the man, the flesh growing from the man’s back around the metal was the reason the cabinet still stayed on tight.

Jesse listened to his instincts. They told him to run, to run away, away from here.

And so he ran, ran as much as his legs could support him, ran just before the monster could begin smashing the office chair forward, every hit pulling a muffled scream out of the man and pushing it towards Jesse, nearly hitting him in the back.

Passing through the forest of hanged men, Jesse then remembered. When the time came, he took a sharp turn and passed through the arch just as the monster hit the wall full force, the vibrations collapsing the whole archways behind him.

“What – What the fuck?! What the fuck was that?!” screamed Jesse to nobody. “I need to get out of here!” He said, looking around for a way of escaping.

There! The makeshift ladder to the vent! He could climb it and… hope that the air vent would take him to safety.

The sound of metal bashing on metal just accelerated his plans.

One by one, Jesse climbed up the steps, the thrashing and the banging becoming stronger and stronger, the fallen cabinets moving more and more forward.

One step, near the top, gave out from under Jesse, him barely, just barely, catching on the vent’s lip. With adrenaline flowing in his bloodstream, Jesse found himself able to raise his body up and into the vent just in time for the cabinet blockade to be broken and for the monster to burst through into the office proper.

Jesse didn’t want to waste any more time, he didn’t know if the monster knew how to climb and didn’t want to find out either. Down through the dusty, dirty air vent he went, hoping that it would lead him somewhere safe.


	5. Back in Office E

Jesse fell down the through the air vent, landing quite hard on his back.

“Ooow.” Maybe he shouldn’t have pushed the grill so hard.

Where was he anyways? Cream hallways, framed photos of landscapes, this reminded him of the place where his office was located at. Oh, hey, one of the offices is even named Office E –

This is his office!

Jesse almost jumped back on his feet, only to slow down as his fall was still recent.

“Ow ow ow.” Groaned Jesse, rubbing his face and then looking at his hand. Red, fresh blood decorated his fingers, just a thin coat, nothing that could flow down his sleeve and stain his shirt and jacket.

Memories of the office he was just a minute ago flashed back into his head, images of the men and women with cuts necks, hanging by their feet. And the monster whose flesh was growing into the metal of the cabinet.

Jesse could feel the contents of his stomach coming back up his throat, and before he knew it, his legs took him by their own accord to the bathroom. He slammed the door open, picking a stall at random and entering it. The last thought that came into his mind, the one before the threw up was of the man that he left behind to face the monster.

\---

“What is going on in here?” Jesse mumbled to himself as he washed his hands. His palms and the back of his hands were clean, but still needed to get out what was under the fingernails. Somehow, puking made him feel better. Somehow. And he shouldn’t forget to wash his face, he did rub his face after all.

Whatever happened in office D, the monster, the workers, the poor man tied to the chair, with a candle growing out of his legs… Was he going crazy? Maybe. Maybe not. The reddened water here and the weird man giggling in another stall could point in both directions.

Jesse rubbed his face and looked at himself in the mirror, finding the reflection of a tired and disheveled man looking back at him. After such an adventure, he couldn’t blame his reflection for looking like that, but he couldn’t keep staying like that. A fix here and there, combing his mess of a hair with his fingers and Jesse considered himself presentable enough.

Feeling clean enough, Jesse exited the bathroom and went back to his office, finding Axel at his desk and no sign of Soren.

“Jesse!” exclaimed Axel after he turned to see who entered the office. “You’re back!”

“Yeah, I guess I am.” Jesse chuckled mirthlessly. “What, you didn’t expect me to come back?” The sad side look Axel gave said more than any lie. “Anyways, where is Soren?”

“Oh, he’s in the boss’ office.” Jesse nodded as a thanks to Axel and went on forward to the office door, while Axel looked on towards the man.

Jesse entered and immediately recoiled from the powerful smell that permeated the room. All the explanations and descriptions in his mind went on to one simple word: rotten, the room smelled rotten. Office D, compared to this room, was only messy. Shelves overfilled with documents, spilling onto the floor in tall towers of paper, a desk with few papers and writing utensils and a lone lamp, the only source of light in this darkened room, but not enough to actually light it all.

And the biggest sign, the large red stain covering the desk and the two cheap plastic and metal chair in front of it. Jesse didn’t know and didn’t want to know how old the stain it was, but the flies that flied around painted a worrying picture.

“Jesse, what a pleasure to have you here,” with a small smile, Soren welcome Jesse in.

“Soren?” after finding out what was this room like, he forgot that he came here for. “Soren! Soren, what the hell in join on in this building!? I’ve been in Office D after my card and somebody locked me there! Then I had to go through computer monitors that threw themselves at me and – and some kind of monster with a filing cabinet on – “

“Jesse, slow down please.” Although Jesse wanted to say more, he closed his mouth and thinned his lips. “Thank you. First of all, you need to be more careful in the dark, you know that it plays tricks with your mind. Monitors that fly? You must’ve hit one and it fell down.”

“Yeah, but…”

“And monsters?” Soren chuckled. “I know that one of the workers in Office D went crazy, but they didn’t do anything, they just hid themselves in a dark corner.” Soren rubbed his beard for a short second. “Why did you in Office D in the first place? We blocked access to that office ever since nobody bothered to show up there for work.”

“What? Then why was I told that my work card was in Office D?”

“Hm, who told you that? Your card is right here,” Soren pointed to the desk’s edge, there being a blued and white plastic card with Jesse’s name and serial number.

“Wha – “, Jesse picked up his card, looking at the front and back. “But our boss told me to check out Office D, they said it was a mistake in delivery…”

“Boss? We don’t have bosses here anymore, Jesse. Not even an CEO.”

“Say what?”

“Yeah, even our last boss disappeared a long time ago, the stress of corporate life got to him after all.”

“But… Then who called me?”

“Oh, some prank caller most likely,” Soren chuckled. Jesse narrowed his vision toward Soren and realized something.

“And, now that I think about it, why did you tell me that you went to talk with our boss about the card problem? And you are sitting in his chair.”

“Hm? No, Jesse, I didn’t say anything about speaking with the boss.”

“But – “

“I said that I will go check out with the boss’ _office_. All the cards for the newest hires comes straight to the boss’ office. As for why I am standing in their chair,” raising himself out of the chair, Soren stretched and went around it, coming near to Jesse. “I went out to call out for you, seeing as your card was here all this time, but I found out from Axel that you went out. So, I stayed put and waited for you to come back.” Soren petted Jesse on the shoulder and moved towards the door. “Oh, by the way, you seem a bit pale”, he said with his hand on the doorknob. “I suggest going to the canteen for a snack and a coffee, last thing we want if for you to collapse.” Soren opened the door, but before exiting the office he threw a last worried look at Jesse. “Take care of yourself, I’ll be at my desk should you need something.

Jesse watched Soren carefully as the older man left the room, narrowing his eyes. Jesse knew what he saw there, in Office D. Whatever was in there was not a trick of the darkness, whatever was there was real as him and Soren and this disaster of a room.

He remembered very clearly what had Soren told him. Soren told him that he will speak with their boss.

\----

With card in hand and carefully looking around to make sure that Soren wasn’t watching him, he wasn’t, thankfully enough, he was at his computer, Jesse placed himself on the chair facing the ancient computer.

Well then, now what?

He knew he needed to use his work card, but where exactly? He heard of old computers having places where they could insert things like SD cards, but bigger, and this computer had no tower or anything like that. It looked more like it was sitting on one, but they where actually fused. He wanted to ask for help, but with Soren here…

Although, now that he looked at it for a moment, there was a slot in the computer for the card. Jesse looked around for a moment, nobody was minding him any business still, and inserted the card.

The computer started instantly, showing him a green old logo of the company, an S behind the world, with Sintra written in front of it. A short moment later, and the logo turned into a mesmerizing cascade of green code.

No matter what was around him, Jesse couldn’t take his eyes of the screen. The code, the green letters were so beautiful, Jesse could spend the whole day looking at them. His eyelids were getting heavier and heavier, the code drawing him in deeper and deeper, until he couldn’t open his eyes anymore.

\---

Jesse woke up with a gasp.

“What was that?!” He thought, looking around, and the moment he realized where he was now, his heart couldn’t help but sink. “Where am I…?” wherever Jesse was now, it wasn’t his office.

The world around him was a colored bright green, all of it separated by lines into giant squares. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, all made from green squares as if they were giant pixels.

This room, space, whatever wasn’t empty, however. Weird pixelate sculptures were strewn around like a bizarre art exhibition. Simple things like giant geometrical structures, a cube, a cone, a sphere, or something like the giant head of an antiquity statue and a white, marble-like palm tree.

And while he stood still, he couldn’t help but feel something in the air, a presence watching him with an unblinking gaze. Swallowing the knot in his throat, Jesse turned around and realized how his gut was more right that he had imagined.

If the world around him was obviously made of pixel, the being in front of his was nearly life like, great contrast to what was surrounding them.

The first word that came into Jesse’s mind was “robot”. And who could blame him for that. Gleaming and shiny, the robot was painted to look like somebody. The body, from the shoulders until the thighs of it was red, like it was some kind of dress, especially the black “belt” in the middle. From there, the legs where black, ending in red shoes. Her arms and face were white, and the head was covered by something stylized in a bowl haircut, with two buns on each side.

But the things that scared Jesse, the most was her eyes. Big, orange-yellow lens were staring at him unblinkingly, all made worse by the unmoving, porcelain-like, way-too-real face.

Jesse made a step backwards and another, only to miss his third step and trip on his own foot, falling on his back. There, the robot turned its head to look down on Jesse, and opened its mouth, from there coming a metallic, obviously artificial female voice.

“Mister Fadden….”


	6. Inside the SintraNet

“Welcome to SintraCorp, Mr. Fadden. My name Sintra, I will be your assistant in the assignment that has been assigned to you.” Jesse looked at the robot like a deer looking straight into the headlights. He blinked once, then twice, only then finding his voice.

“Wha – Wha – What?!” Mumbled Jesse, picking himself up from the floor, all in Sintra’s view. “What do you mean? What assistant? Where am I?”

“All your questions will be answered, Mr. Fadden.” Sintra, with a wave of her hand, presented the room. “You are in SintraNet.” That name ringed a few bells to Jesse. “A companywide intranet for ease of corporate needs. Tracking of task, receiving and sending messages to colleagues and consulting me in any topic that our data base has to offer. To give you an example,” In Jesse’s hand appeared a pixelated, green envelope.

“Um, well then.” Jesse opened the letter, and the words appeared in front of him like a holographic screen. “Welcome to SIntraCorp, Mr. Fadden. We hope the time at the company will pe productive and prosperous.” He mumbled, the letter dissolving into pixels once he had finished reading it. “So, I presume you sent it to me, no?”

“Yes, as an example to SintraNet’s capabilities.” Sintra turned away from Jesse and walked towards the wall next to them. “Now,” she said, turning back to him, “it is the time to explain the responsibilities and tasks that you were assigned to.” On the wall opened a holographic screen much like the one he had in hand earlier. “I am going to presume you had studied the contract thoroughly before signing it, yes?”

“Well, sure, yeah, I did.” He said, finishing with an awkward laugh. “Though some of the words and corporate – legal jargon flew over my head and you know… heh.” In face with the unblinking stare of Sintra, Jesse couldn’t do much but scratch the back of his head and awkwardly smile.

“Very well, I shall use small words.”

“I feel like I should be offended by that….,” he mumbled. “But continue, please.”

“As written in your contract, your task in this company is to exterminate the creature known as “The Witch”.

“Wait, what? That – That has to be a joke, right? Witches don’t exist!”

“There is no joke, you have been hired as a Witch Hunter, Mr. Fadden.”

“No no no, no way! There has to be a mistake here. No way, no way I will hunt anyone in this company! And, I mean, a witch? Give me a break, there’s gotta be something wrong in here, witches aren’t real.”

“Allow me to further explain your assignment.” On the screen appeared the image of a book. “Your first task is to locate the Hexxenhammer –

“No, I said I won’t!” Jesse turned away from Sintra and the screen and started looked around. “How do I get out of here.”

“Please, Mr. Fadden. This is an important matter not just for the company, but for all the employees currently in the building.”

Jesse hesitated for a moment, the faces of Olivia and Axel running through his mind. He barely knew them, but they seemed like good people. And on the other side, he remembered Office D, Soren’s words and his coworkers aimlessly wandering the corridors. To say that was unnatural was an understatement, but witches don’t exist, right…?

So, Jesse sighed and turned back to Sintra.

“Thank you. As I mentioned earlier, your first task here is to find the Hexxenhammer, a 15th century treatise describing the discovery, hunt and execution of witches.”

“Wait, you don’t have in your data base?”

“No. While SintraCorp has acquired a copy of the Hexxenhammer, its location is currently unknown. It was supposed to come for digitalization, but due to unknown reasons it had never arrived. However, according to the latest records, the tome should be located in the company archives, on the seventh floor.”

“Is this it?”

“The company requires me to disclose that for completion of the task, you will be rewarded one thousand credits.” Jesse couldn’t help but gape at that sum of money. And yet…

“I mean… That sounds nice, but I don’t know if I could kill this witch or something. I came here for a normal job, not… this! I’m not sure – I don’t think I could do this! Isn’t there somebody more qualified for this?” Would there even be somebody qualified for this?

“I’m sorry to hear this, Mr. Fadden.” Sintra said after a moment of silence. “But at the moment we don’t have any other candidates that could qualify for this assignment.”

“Wh-What? Me? Qualified? Look there’s gotta be a mistake here!”

“The company has chosen you, Mr. Fadden.”

Jesse just stared incredulously at Sintra, who returned a blank stare. After a moment of silence, Jesse sighed and slumped his shoulders, defeated.

“I really have no choice in here, do I?”

“The company has chosen you, Mr. Fadden.”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time.” Jesse looked around. “How do I get out of here?”

A red doorway with an X on top appeared a couple of meters away from Jesse, its insides pure white.

“Pass through this doorway and you shall be returned to your office space.” Jesse nodded towards Sintra and started walking towards the doorway, only for Sintra to stop him at the last step. “One last note about your task of killing the Witch: it is confidential. What are we talking here is for your ears only, no other coworker must know of your assignment.”

“Alright,” Jesse nodded slowly. “Why?”

“The witch has eyes and ears everywhere in the company. I hope you will succeed on your task Mr. Fadden. Farewell.”

Swallowing the knot in his throat, Jesse stepped through the doorway, the green virtual world disappearing from his view.

\---

Jesse woke with a strong twitch.

Blinking twice ,Jesse started to looks around, trying to understand his surroundings.

He was back in the real world. Yes, as much as he didn’t want to believe anything with the witch, even he couldn’t deny what was happening in the company. He only wished that they would have chosen a better candidate…

A thought came into Jesse’s mind. It might not be the smartest idea, especially in a corporate world, but what if the left? What if he just went on the lobby doors and left?

Jesse had to admit, that was a tempting idea, but… No. He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t just simply leave the company and all the people in it just like that. He just couldn’t.

And somehow, he knew he can’t leave the company. He just… knew.

Rubbing his face and groaning loudly, Jesse got up from his chair, only to see Soren looking at him with a gleam in his eyes.

“Ah, look who has decided to wake up. You’re lucky nobody came, you would have gotten in big trouble otherwise.” He said, with a smirk.

“Weren’t you the one who said that there isn’t anybody here who would come to check us?” Jesse threw back, rolling his eyes.

“Hah, nice one, Jesse.” Soren chuckled. “So, what are your responsibilities here?”

“Oh, well, nothing too interesting, just some assorted chores. I need to get to the archives to get some documents, and I wonder how I’ll end up killing the – “, Jesse stopped himself, coughing loudly as a cover.

“Hm? What was that?” Soren was surprised to hear that. “You have to kill someone?”

“No no, of course not! Why would you say that? Jesus!” Jesse sighed, hoping that the voice crack wouldn’t make Soren even more suspicious. “Sorry, I swallowed some spit. Uh, I meant, how I’ll end up killing time. I mean, other than that I haven’t received any tasks, sooo… yeah!”

“Hmm,” Soren looked at Jesse with narrowed eyes. “Oh, Jesse,” Soren shook his head, “You don’t need to be nervous on your first day, mistakes are allowed. So, after you go to the archives and all of that, go to the cafeteria, get yourself a sandwich and a coffee and relax until tonight.”

“Yeah, that could work. What’s tonight, by the way?”

“Oh, it’s my birthday! And you’re invited too!”

“Huh?” for a second Jesse looked at Soren with a confused expression, until the cogs in his brain finally started to roll together. “Oh! Oh, cool. Yeah, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you, Jesse.” Soren nodded. “Well, I already held you back too much in your task. Good luck in your task, Jesse, I’ll see you later!”

“Yeah, sure, sure. I’ll see you later, Soren.” With that done with, Jesse passed Soren, walking towards the office door, but not before he nodded as a hello towards Axel. Thankfully, Axel nodded back, as slightly as he could in face with Soren, and went back to his monitor.


	7. Forray into the Archives

Jesse realized just as he entered the elevator that he didn’t actually know on what floor were the archives. Wait, no, Sintra mentioned it to him, but he, ahem forgot it.

For a short second, Jesse wanted to exit the elevator and check out the floor, then he remembered. What if someone were to see him? Sintra’s words still ringed in Jesse’s mind, “the witch has ears and eyes everywhere”.

So, which floor was it anyways? If he remembered right, in order were the lobby, the canteen, Aiden’s floor, a third floor, Olivia’s floor and his floor, floors from six to nine and the CEO office he left just this morning. Other than the first two and his floor, he had no idea what the other floors were for.

Aiden said something like, the higher the floor the better the job. Archiving is a pretty important job in the corporate world, right? I mean, they need to keep records of all their transactions and stuff, right? So, if he were right, the archives room would be at a higher floor.

Now, which floor? He had four from which to choose.

Shrugging, Jesse pressed the button for the floor six.

_*BZZZT*_

He received a loud buzzing noise in return. Wait it broken maybe? Jesse pressed it again, with a bit more force.

_*BZZZT*_

Still nothing. Either the button was broken or the floor wasn’t open.

Either way, Jesse knew that he had no luck with the sixth floor, so he pressed the button for the seventh floor, hoping that this time he would be a bit more lucky.

_*DING*_

And with that, the elevator doors closed behind him, the elevator shaking for a second before starting its ascension towards the seventh floor.

\---

Jesse’s first thought regarding the archives floor was “contradiction”. The lobby to the archives was an unnatural combination of boring, sterile, corporate space of storing file and a grand library, like the ones of centuries past, some that only mystics and sages would have.

And next to the grand, solid mahogany double door to the… actually, Jesse didn’t even know what to make of this door. Why was such a door, with golden, maybe true gold?, frames be in this building? And it’s size, for some reason it was as if it was bigger than the room itself.

And next to the door was a simple, well, if one could call it like that, computer screen, another reason for why Jesse couldn’t help but feel like he was standing in a contradiction. Trying his best to ignore the clashing architecture, Jesse turned towards the screen, a series of options awaiting him.

Jesse had to admit, he wasn’t very used to computers. Yeah, he had a phone and a laptop, but he never used them for anything more than surfing on the internet or some schoolwork, like Word and PowerPoint.

From the looks of it, he needed a form to enter the Library. A form that was thankfully available to print right here and right now. Jesse didn’t even hesitate in printing the form.

“Alright, let me see what I have to fill in…” he murmured looking over the blank boxes on the paper. All he needed were the name, the authors, year of publication and publishing house. This seemed simple enough, the name, at least, he already knew, but where could he find the other details?

His search through the lobby turned out to be fruitful, Jesse finding a normal door with a small plaque inscribed “Archives”.

“Ah, here we go.” He said, opening the door to another hallways, one who’s lights were off.

With scowl, Jesse entered the dark hallway, leaving the door to the lobby open. Still, he made sure he was truly alone in the Archives, one trap was more than enough for Jesse’s first day.

Unfortunately enough, the light from the lobby was too weak to break through the darkness, forcing Jesse to hug the wall until he could find the light switch. It would be a lie to say that the flash of light from all the neon in the hallway lighting up all at once didn’t blind Jesse for a short second, but he would rather take the eye pain that to get lost in the dark.

Well, the state of the archives didn’t surprise Jesse very much. Just like the rest of the building, it was a mess, papers thrown in every corner of the room with no care if and when someone would step on them. Taking notes of his surroundings, Jesse went by the reception, finding no sign of an archivist or anything like that, and went by another dark hallway leading deeper into the archives.

Next to the split was a framed poster, a map of the Archives, for each room a legend showing what it was supposed to hold. Aha, here it was, Authors was in the Record Room, forward, Publication Years was in the Audio Room, down the dark hallways and the Publication House was in Storage, somewhere on - a second floor? The doors in the lobby were tall, but not tall enough to seem like there would be a second floor.

Shaking his head at the notion, it was most likely a weird building plan, the archives being a two-in-one floor situation, but, to be fair, as long as knew where he had to go, he had no place to complain.

Pressing the light switch for the dark hallway and stopping for a second when he saw the lights flash from time to time, Jesse went on forwards, passing by a filing cabinet. Jesse once again stopped his walk when at the tail of his eye he saw that there was something hidden behind the cabinet, something red, dripping down on the scratched floor.

Jesse had to admit, he wasn’t too thrilled to find out that he pushed out this filing cabinet for just a triangle.

And going on forward, the hallways ended in a pitch black room, with a light switch at its end. With no hesitation, Jesse flipped the switch, the light revealing two rows of shelves filled to the brim with folders and files.

The Record Room, it must be.

However, now another problem showed itself to Jesse, where should he search for the author name? There were a couple of tables in one corner of the room, but at a closer inspection there were no clues regarding the author. There were a couple of papers mentioning some kind of old book and an old man, but Jesse had a feeling that this wasn’t related to the author.

So, all that was left was to search through the rows and rows of shelves and –

Jesse froze instantly when he saw what was between the two rows of shelves. A woman, or at least... what was left of her. There… was nothing left below the waist. Only a reddish maroon splat, a clear contrast between the grey floor and the light brown wooden shelves.

Jesse couldn’t help but find himself unable to breathe, every inhale and exhale being nothing more than empty moves, bringing no air to his lungs.

Just like in the Office D. All those people, dead, hanged, necks cut.

What could’ve done that? What could’ve done this?!

He… he had to leave! He had to leave this cursed building! Now! Before he would become the next victim of this – this Witch’s curse!

So Jesse ran, ran back from where he came from, ran back to the elevator, smashing the button so hard one would fear that it would break. Yet it stayed strong against Jesse’s assault, receiving it’s moment of respite when the elevator’s doors opened, Jesse entering without a second thought, his target now being the lobby button.

Face to face with his own reflection, Jesse’s resolve to leave the building became so much stronger. He won’t just try to leave the building; he _will_ leave it!

And the moment the elevator doors opened, Jesse broke into a sprint, his mind reaching for the ultimate prize, the door to the outside world.

Only for the lobby to stretch to an infinite.

It all crashed down on him.

He remembered now. Back in his office, that feeling that he couldn’t leave the building. His gut feeling was right. Righter than he wanted it to be.

Now he couldn’t deny it anymore.

The Witch was real. The Witch’s curse was real. The building itself, all the workers inside, the monster in office D, all the poor victims in Office D and the Archives, they were all cursed. He couldn’t leave the building, does it mean nobody can? Most likely, now that he thinks about it.

He was stuck here. Stuck until he would kill the Witch.

Kill the Witch…

Huh.

Jesse fell on his knees, then on his side and just stood there, too tired to do anything except wait. Wait for what? Even Jesse didn’t know. All that he wanted to do now was just to lie down and wait a bit, rest a bit.

And so he did, Jesse lied on the floor and waited, only him and the camera as a witness.


	8. Back in the Archives

Jesse couldn’t even muster the strength to drink his coffee. He stared and stared at it, as if it was poison. He didn’t even know why he made it, he just did. Everything he’s done since the lobby was done on autopilot.

He was stuck here, stuck like many other workers.

Jesse sighed and took a sip of his coffee.

Ah, yes, he thought, while scrunching up his face, he didn’t even think about adding sugar or milk.

Not that it would matter, the coffee wasn’t hot anymore, the coffee wouldn’t sweeten as well as if it were hot.

And now what? What could he do since the world outside was barred from him? He… could work? After all, this was an office building, he could find some work, right? Yeah, some computer work, like Excel spreadsheets and paper pushing around the offices, what’s the worst it could happen?

As if the building itself wanted to punish his hubris, the only other occupant of the canteen spoke up.

“I love these cereals.” He slurred, his plastic fork scratching the empty dinner plate. “They give you superpowers.” And for a couple of seconds, his movements of bringing the fork to his lips and back to the plate became much faster, only to die down to a more normal speed.

Jesse slammed his head onto the table.

As much as Jesse hated to admit, that was his future in this company, just another corporate drone, going on with his life, broken and maddened by this insanity. Why did he accept this job in the first place? Why couldn’t he throw it away and go on with his life? He and his family could just go on fine by –

No, no they couldn’t, they were barely hanging above the line. One bad step and, as he heard being thrown around, debt is an endless spiral going down.

That’s why he accepted the job in the end, even though he didn’t know what to expect.

Before he knew how SintraCorp was truly like.

Before he knew what his true job was.

Before he knew that he had to kill the Witch.

Jesse raised his head from the table, only to holding in his hands. He can’t… he simply can’t do it… he can’t just kill someone… Not even this Witch. Hell, he’s sure he can’t even kill it, even if he tried…

…

But what else could he do?

He could either end up like his fellow colleague, still shoveling nothing in his mouth, or he could try to stop the Witch. And/Or die trying.

None of them sound good, but like he said: what else could he do?

He… couldn’t just the people in this building, Axel, Olivia, even Aiden and Soren to their fates, he just… couldn’t…

\---

The return to the archives couldn’t have taken more than 5 minutes, yet it felt like an eternity. Every ding of the elevator, going up and up from the first floor to the seventh, seemed to take an hour each.

And the walk into the room itself seemed longer even.

He couldn’t help but look at every shadow as if something could jump out of it and attack. Or no, as if the shadows themselves were to be the ones that would attack.

And between the two shelves filled top to bottom with folders and files, was the body of the woman, everything below the waist turned into a red spot on the concrete floor.

Jesse breathed in deep, his mind flashing towards the Office D.

He breathed in and exhaled.

His stomach churned.

He looked straight at the woman unable to blink, unable to move.

Jesse breathed in deeply and exhaled.

“I…” he started to say. “I’m sorry, m’am.” He turned his head away, for a second banishing the memories of Office D, he needed to be strong, just to get through this. “I’m do whatever I can to do my job.”

And he tuned his eyes back to the woman. She was facing him, her face on the floor, arms in front of her in a crawling position and holding a piece of paper.

Jesse walked closer to the woman, hearing a small click.

Jesse stopped, not daring to do even one more step.

Eyes darting left, right and forwards, Jesse found the source.

It was a… mine? It looked like a mine, but it’s light… Was it just him or the light looked at him? Jesse took one step backwards and the light… closed itself? Closed itself as if it was an eyelid.

Jesse gulped the knot formed in his throat. He can do it, he can do it, he can do it. But, there is no shame in admitting that no matter what the company throws at him, he would never get used to it. Right?

Carefully and with slow steps, Jesse approached the woman, thankfully not activating the mine in the process, and took the paper from her hand.

“What the…?” The woman had the exact same form as him. And she too was looking for the Hexxenhammer too. Not that she got very far, having written down the book’s name and – wait, no, she wrote A2 where the name was supposed to be. “A2…”

Looking closer, the shelves weren’t just simple shelves, they were on some kind of rails and each had this valve to move them forward or backward. He was at… A6, A2 must be near the start of Row A

A5, A4, A3, A2! Here it is!

But, uh, where should he start? There were hundreds, maybe thousands of folders in the entire shelf, it would take forever to find the book name.

Sighing, Jesse took a random file out and started perusing it. Of course, nothing more than business jargon that he didn’t even understand. Jesse placed the file back and pulled another one. Second verse, same as the first, nothing useful. Nothing useful on the third or the fourth or the fifth.

At this point even in this situation, Jesse couldn’t help but feel a headache starting to form.

Jesse slammed his head on the shelf

“Ow.” well, that might not have been the smartest idea, now that he thought of it

And to rub salt in the wound, a couple of folders decided to dislodge themselves from the tightly packed shelf and fall on his head. Jesse breathed in deeply and exhaled, picking the folder sitting comfortably on his head.

Again, nothing more than – B7. There was a blank piece of paper with B7 written on it

The whole left row was A, everything related to B was on the right side of the hall. And not only that, but the seventh shelf was inching too close to the mine. Last thing he wanted was to end up like the woman.

Hmmm, the B row was a bit further back than Row A, maybe he could bring it closer.

Slowly, but surely and standing as far as possible from the mine, Jesse turned the valves on the shelves, bringing them closer to him – and making a passage towards the stairs to the second floor of floor 7. This felt weird to say, now that Jesse realized it. The floor didn’t look that big in the lobby to actually seem to have two floors.

Well, it’s also SintraCorp, so why is he even surprised anymore?

Jesse reached for a random folder only to stop midway. There was no way he could find out the right folder combing through every single file in the shelf. After all, he didn’t find the one in A2 by searching.

Jesse sighed and hoped he was right. Jesse punched the shelf, more than a couple of folders falling on top of him.

Somewhere just random corporate analytics, some were filled with old, yellowed papers that were barely in one piece – and in one was an A and star with 6 sides. A6, maybe? With nothing else to lose, other than dignity, Jesse went over the A6 shelf and gave it a punch, the shower of paper not even bothering him anymore.

However, all of these papers showed only one thing. An arrow. And, if he were right, all of them were pointing up.

Up where?

The second floor maybe?

Moving as slowly and carefully as possible, Jesse moved through the B6 and B7 passage, not disturbing the mine, although for a moment it seemed like it was ready to open its eye up.

Unfortunately enough, the second floor was pitch black. Fortunately enough, the light switch was at the head of the stairs, them being light up enough for Jesse to climb up towards the top and flick on the switch.

And to be hit with a blood red painting of a giant, floor to ceiling, cobweb and an anatomically correct spider. Jesse wished that it was only paint, but the brownish-red color and the strong odor of metal in the air told him otherwise. Standing as far away from the painting, near the handrail that was overlooking the two rows of shelves, Jesse found what he was looking for, a solitary folder atop one of the shelves.

But before Jesse could go towards the part of the rails above the row of shelves, the light went out for just a second.

In that single second, in that pitch black blackness, Jesse felt his heart drop, behind him a slithering, crawling sound could be heard. The light flashed, Jesse quickly turning back and seeing nothing. Turning back forwards, the light went off again, the same sound coming now from in front of him, now much, much closer than before.

And the light turned itself back on, this time staying on.

The spider was still on the wall, but – no, it truly moved! It’s not in the same position as it was before!

Moving as quickly as he could, Jesse climbed over the railway and onto the shelves, them slightly moving and shaking from the sudden weight placed upon them. Knowing better than to try his luck, Jesse moved slowly, one step for every shelf, until he reached the folder. Picking it quickly, Jesse went back to the railway, climbing back up and continued onward taking a corner right and passing a filing cabinet on – a scratched floor.

Jesse looked at the spider picture. It didn’t move again. Still, he couldn’t help but swallow the knot in his throat, he needed to be quick. He moved the filing cabinet, as fast as he could, finding behind it a square drawn in blood.

A triangle and a square? This had to mean something.

That could wait, however, first things first he needed to get out of this room.

Thankfully, at the end of this walkway was another door, one that Jesse went through with no hesitation.


	9. The Man in The Audio Room

Jesse went through the door, entering another balcony overlooking a pitch black hallway. Well, not quite pitch black, as some light from the entrance could shine through the hallways mouth. Taking the corner to the left, not that he could go anywhere else, Jesse saw the balcony continuing onwards then making another corner to the right, stopping at a ladder going down into the dark.

Two doors were awaiting Jesse, one covered in drawings of eyes, something that Jesse couldn’t help but feel like they were following him, and the other simple, with a plaque inscribed Records.

But the thing that took Jesse’s attention was the knot tied to the handrail. It was too thin and too darkly colored to be a rope. It seemed more like – it was a tie!

Jesse ran towards the knot, the darkness obstructing the person that hanged from this tie. His hands floated above the knot, his mind stuck. Should he untie it? W-Was this person alive anymore? What if they were alive, but they won’t be anymore?

A deep, wet groan could ne heard through the darkness.

At this point, Jesse’s instincts took over and he untied the knot

The person fell onto the ground, a wet splat indicating the way they fell.

“What have I done…?” whispered Jesse, horrified. He couldn’t just stand there, he needed to check them out! The ladder!

Jesse didn’t waste any time in lowering the ladder, but before he could make the first step down, he realized that he would walk right into a pitch black darkness. Stopping for a second made, Jesse could again think and weigh his options. One, he could jump straight into a darkened hallway, where he had no idea what could await him. Two, he could go back from where he came from, he saw a light switch –

Wait, he flicked the switch before, didn’t he?

Did someone turn it off? Had the building turned it off?

Both possibilities worried Jesse.

As he said, he would have to go back, back through the room with the spider drawing and the mine. Not the most entertaining option either, but at the very least he knew what awaited him there.

With a deep sigh, Jesse went back from where he came from, hoping that the person hanging from the handrail wasn’t too hurt.

\---

The spider was gone.

Jesse’s blood ran cold the moment his eyes fell upon the empty bloody cobweb on the wall.

Thousands of questions ran at a million kilometers in Jesse’s mind, all of them related to the spider in question. It took Jesse all of his mental power to stop them from freezing him on the spot. And that was the last thing Jesse wished for in the situation at hand.

Walking over towards the stairs, passing over the two bloody trails going from the wall to the handrail and back, Jesse had no choice but to follow the fresh trail going down the stairs, through his passage through the shelves and stopping cold in the middle on the two rows of shelves.

Jesse inhaled deeply and passed the stop and went on forwards, exiting the Records Room.

Thankfully, nothing was out of the ordinary in the hallway intersection, except the fact that something or someone turned off the light. After a moment of hesitation, Jesse pressed the light switch, the hallway ahead of him getting once again lit up by flickering neons.

Jesse still couldn’t say that he felt safe, not a big surprise, considering this building, but at the very least he felt better about walking through a somewhat well lit hallway than a pitch black one.

Now that he had some light, Jesse could see what was awaiting him in the new hall.

This time, someone else pushed the filing cabinet out of the way, revealing a square painted in blood on the wall. A triangle, and two squares, this had to mean something. It was surely a code, but for what?

Jesse shook his head, he had no time for questions now, he was sure these three shapes would come useful for something later down the line, he needed to find the book and – that person! They have fallen here, have they not?

Jesse looked around, but found the hallway empty, nothing more than a pool of blood and an abandoned suitcase next to it. Jesse couldn’t help but inhale deeply, his heartbeat starting to quicken. Was the person… the spider maybe…?

The closer he came to the pool, the clearer it became that the was a trail coming from it and going through a doorway with its door left ajar. A door with a plaque inscribed “Audio”. For a moment, in Jesse’s brain the wheels started to move, reminding him that one of the boxes he had to fill in the form had its answer in the Audio Room.

But, first thing first, the person, he had to find out if they were okay.

Jesse hesitated for a second, his mind jumping towards the worst, only to open up the door fully and enter the Audio Room.

The room was brightly lit, revealing the rows and row of shelves containing… cassettes and VHSs? This wasn’t something that he saw every day, his mom and dad got some cassettes around the house, but this was the first time he ever saw a VHS in person. A medium sized framed poster adorned the wall next to the door, Jesse tilting his head at what he saw on it.

It was filled with shapes, triangles, squares and circles, all in vertical rows of three. Like, square, square, triangle or square, triangle, circle – Wait, square, square, triangle? Just like the three shapes he found around the walls of this floor. And from the looks of it… yeah, this iwas the only combination containing the three shapes, now all he had to do was to find the shelf.

Thankfully enough, the code was written on the shelves, small enough that he wouldn’t have seen it had he not actually looked for it.

A deep, ragged breath stopped Jesse on the spot. The person! It was still alive!

And Jesse didn’t know whenever to feel fortunate or disgusted that it was the blood trail that led him to them.

At the end of the room, there were three closets, the trail ending up at the middle of it. Although hesitant at the idea of what he could find there, Jesse didn’t lose time in placing hid hand on the handle and – the ragged breath made itself known once again. It didn’t come from the closet in front of him, it came from the one on his left.

“Hello?” he called out, moving from one closet to the other. “Uh, are you alright in there?” he asked, reaching for the handle.

A pale hand came out of the closet, grabbing his wrist and holding on tight.

“Are you a Hunter?” the gravelly voice said, opening the closet door a bit more, just enough that Jesse could see some red hair and – a very bloody face!

“S-Sir!” Jesse said, swallowing the knot formed in his throat at the sight of blood. “You’re – You’re hurt!”

“You didn’t answer my question,” the man said calmly, applying more pressure on Jesse’s wrist, turning the uncomfortable grip into a painful one.

“I – I – I – I – “, stammered Jesse.

“Hmph.” Muttered the man, letting go of Jesse. “You won’t go far like this, kid. You panicked oh so easily, I fear for you once you see what’s hidden in the company, Hunter.”

“What? How – How did you know?” Jesse said, rubbing his sore wrist.

“Nobody comes in these parts of the company anymore. Nobody except the Hunters.”

“Wait, does that mean you’re a Hunter too?” now he realized that there was something amiss, the woman, this man, the woman had a form, this man said that only Hunters came in the Archives anymore

“Hmph, at least you got some common sense, it’s a start.” The man muttered, but Jesse was too surprised to comment. “Yeah, I was an electrician in the suburbs before coming to SintraCorp. Hmph, I should have thrown that letter the moment I put my eye on it. And now I paid the price.”

“I’m sorry about it.” Jesse said. “I’m from the suburbs too, I received such a letter a few days ago. I had… hope I could give my parents and my baby brother a better life.”

“Hmph… I hope that it’s good enough to push you forward.” The man murmured. “Kid, watch out for the mines, they aren’t what you think they are, they can’t be deactivated, they need to be killed to be stopped forever.”

“Wait, killed? They are alive?”

“Depends on your definition of alive.”

“And… how can I kill them?”

“This… I don’t truly know, I saw a dead upstairs, in the hallway going to the Playback Room.”

“I… thank you, I guess?”

“Don’t thank me, I only delayed your inevitable death.”

Jesse could feel the bead of cold sweat going down his forehead.

“Kid, wait a second. The Storage Room above has no electricity, one of the fuses has burned out and left the room in pitch black darkness.” Jesse furrowed his brows at the information. He will need a flashlight then. How much battery his phone had, now that he thought about it? “I know how you can bring power back to it, however. I don’t recommend it for home repairs, but this company can burn down, for all that I care.”

“Uhhh, could you explain, please?”

“All you need is something made out of metal to fit in the fuse spot. Like I said, I don’t recommend it for your home, but here it’s just what you need to bring back light.” Jesse opened his mouth to ask where he could find something that could fit, but the man interrupted him. “I have… something in my suitcase that could help you.” There was something different in his voice now, his ragged breath becoming quicker.

“I… thank you, again, sir.”

“Don’t thank me. Focus, kid, focus. The company still has a lot in store for you.” The man looked at Jesse one last time. “Kid, do what I couldn’t do.” And with that, he slammed the doors of the closet closed.

“Wait, what do you…” Jesse stopped, there was no use, was it? He felt like the man won’t open the doors for now. Or anymore.

Jesse sighed and left the closet alone, trying his best to ignore the choked and quickened ragged breaths inside.


	10. First Meeting

Jesse had to admit, it would have been easier should have he checked the poster before searching for the correct shelf. The poster, while upside down, showed which shelf had which code.

And he had passed the correct shelf twice by now.

Now came the hardest part. Finding the correct cassette or tape with the Hexxenhammer… uhhh, year of publication? At least that’s what Jesse remembers… Well, he would soon find out anyways. The man said that there was a playback room upstairs, he could find out there.

Like he said, this was the hardest part, the shelf being filled from bottom to the top with cassettes and VHS tapes. Didn’t these go out of style like… 30 years ago? While there are still things like this in here? SintraCorp is - is it anymore, actually? - world leader in technology innovation, you’d think that they would change into something more modern, like cloud storage or even CDs!

And worse than that, none of the cassette or tape boxes had labels. Some had their labels scratched off, while others didn’t seem to have a label in the first place.

Jesse knew that it’s not as simple, or as complicated, as it might seem. The company… it doesn’t play in the same rules he thinks in. the boxes might not have labels, but there must be something there, something that’ll point him in the right direction. He… had this gut feeling.

And looking at one of the boxes, he saw that the way it was scratched didn’t seem that random. It looked… like a rhombus between two triangles, with… an eye in the middle of the rhombus.

Jesse swallowed hard, his breath quickening. The symbol… he didn’t feel right looking at it.

And inside it had an unlabeled cassette.

Jesse left the box to rest on the shelf and left the Audio Room, but not before he threw one last look at the man in the closet.

The room was silent.

\---

He said to look in his suitcase. There might be something that could help him.

Dragging the suitcase as far away from the pool of blood before trying to open it. Thankfully enough, this suitcase didn’t have any password lock. With a finger and the second on each lock mechanism, Jesse opened the suitcase revealing its contents.

Just some papers, a few pencils and a sandwich in aluminium foil.

And a note on the sandwich.

“Have a good day at work, Jack. I will be fine. Love, Sammy.” Jesse looked at the door to the Audio room and back at the note.

Jesse sighed deeply and placed the note back in the suitcase.

Where was that fuse box?

Thankfully, close. Right next to the emergency ladder he had lowered earlier.

Jesse had to admit, he thought while opening the box door, he had no idea what to do here. There were three fuses in the box, a small red light above each one. Well, above two of them, one of them was off. And now that he looked at it, the fuse looked a bit… black? Like if it was burned.

Again, Jesse hesitated in doing anything.

What if he electrocuted himself?

And he had nothing to replace the fuse with – Wait, it didn’t matter what it was, as long as it was made from metal and it fit. He could use the aluminium foil.

Jesse really hoped he wouldn’t burn the building down.

For the third time, Jesse hesitated to change the fuse. There must be something here that would help him not get electrocuted! Especially now that his hands got sweaty.

Looking around on the fuse box, Jesse found a simple, small, black switch, with POWER being written above it, an I to its left and an O to its right, right now being on I.

It didn’t take long for Jesse to realize what he had to do.

With the makeshift “fuse” in hand, Jesse’s finger however over the O side of the switch, mentally preparing himself to change the right fuse.

1… 2… 3… Jesse pressed the switch, plunging the whole hallway into darkness. Faster than he expected himself to be, Jesse changed, what he had hoped to be, the right fuse and switched the power back on.

Outside of a worryingly red color, the “fuse” seemed to hold on pretty well.

Jesse climbed the emergency ladder as fast as he could, making the best of the little time he had left, and quickly entered the storage room, leaving the door on the hallway open so the light outside could guide him towards the light switch.

Without hesitation, Jesse pressed the light switch flooding the room in light.

And revealing the countless mines strewn on the floor.

With a torso of a man in the middle of the room.

And a table full of documents in the corner, at the other end of the room.

The room filled with mines.

Oh.

Now had Jesse realized.

Oh no.

That he had to walk all the way through the minefield to reach the files.

Step by step, Jesse went further and further in the minefield, mines and mines closing and opening their green glowing eyes, watching him as he went on forward, closing them once he was far away enough for him to not matter to them. At least for now, what goes around has to come around, does it not?

Jesse didn’t realize that he held his breath, until he reached the table and finally found himself at ease. Or, as much as he could find himself before he needed to go back to the minefield. Well, at least now he knew how close he could get to the mines before they could open their eyes.

He just had to do it again.

Yeah.

Shuddering in his sweat drenched suit, Jesse turned back at the files on the table. It took him a surprisingly short time, most of the files and folders being somewhat organized, each book having their author, publishing and authors. Each book in the archives having a short description and their authors.

Hexxenhammer – 15 th century treatise on Witches search and execution, written by – damn it, the authors and the date of writing have been covered in something brown – Oh, wait, it’s blood, isn’t it? Jesse made a face and continued on, letting a sigh of ease once he found the publishing house at least.

A thought came into Jesse’s mind, while he wrote down the publishing house of the form.

Wait a second, he had the author name and the date. He had the document file from the Archive Room and the cassette from the Record Room. All he had to do was to get out of this and write it – down?

Jesse couldn’t help but stare dumbfounded at the newcomer. He was dressed in a black familiar suit, with a plastic black as coal mask, with purple eyes and a frowning open mouth, all tied together with a red cape, walking slowly, making weird sounds like a ghost but… weird? Even Jesse couldn’t know how to explain them.

And soon, that confusion turned into horror as the man walked over the light switch, threw Jesse a deep sharp look and turned the lights off.

“Hey, what are you doing!” but his calls were unanswered, as the man left the room, making the same weird sounds, until the closing of the door silenced them.

Jesse felt a wave of cold panic coming over him, now he had to traverse this minefield in the dark – wait! No, he had his phone! He could use the flashlight to navigate this room!

With a … shakier hand than he would have wanted, Jesse pulled his phone out of his pocket and turned on the flashlight. And much to his dismay, whatever was affecting this building started affecting his phone too, as far as he knew, phone flashlights don’t flicker.

And so began Jesse’s walk back, in pitch black darkness with the occasional flash of flashlight light, the green glow of the mines as they turned their eyes towards him, only to close them back when Jesse had passed them. So far so good, so far so good, Jesse said to himself as he came closer to the exit. He was so close, he could taste it.

Only for a mine to open its eye right as Jesse was about to step on it.

Red glowing eyes.

Jessed stopped in place as if time itself stopped him. The mine looked at him, its red eye pulsating, ready to explode. Jesse was pretty sure he could also hear a soft beeping, warning him to not make that one last step.

With all power he had in him, Jesse, slowly as if he was made of molasses, retracted his foot and went another foot back, the mine looking carefully at him, the red turning to green and finally turning off. Jesse pointed his flashing at the mine and at the area around it, finding no other mine.

Jesse continued onwards, avoiding the mine and finally exiting the Storage Room.

Jesse looked around, the bright light of the walkway and the flashing lights of the hallway below hurting his unaccustomed eyes.

He was out of the minefield.

Jesse rested his back on the door and let himself slide down until his bottom hit the floor.

Jesse exhaled deeply, letting go of that breath he held in ever since the light was turned off.

\---

So, this must be the door that would take him towards the Playback Room? Though Jesse, looking over the eyes-covered-door. Thankfully, these eyes didn’t seem to follow him. He did raise an eyebrow at this, but he can’t say that he was surprised by such stuff anymore.

First thing Jesse saw when he passed the doorway was that it had some red chairs and it had a corner that went on left, deeper into the building.

This time there were three doors, two normal ones and one with more eyes decorating it.

But the thing that stopped Jesse on the spot was a mine at the end of the hallway.

A dead mine.

Its eye stabbed right through with a pencil, spilling green goo all around it.

Carefully making his way towards it, Jesse could feel his fears melt away as the mine was as it seemed, dead, deactivated, it didn’t matter. And from there, he could hear something from the eye covered door, something like… voices?

Jesse came towards the door, wondering for a moment what should he do. 

With a facepalm he finally found out an idea.

Jesse knocked on the door.

And he received no answer. Well, no answer for him, the voices continued on, talking among themselves.

This was weird, he thought, knocking harder on the door.

Still no answer and no change in how the voices talked.

At this point, Jesse raised an eyebrow and slowly opened the door, pushing his head in first to see what was inside.

Ah, the voices were coming from a TV, an older model from the looks of it, one those big, bulky types. And in front of it, a blond woman with braids and a green t-shirt and white sweater pants, eyes transfixed on the screen.

“Um, hello?” Jesse said, coming closer towards the woman. “Hello?” he said again, louder this time, when she didn’t react the first time.

“Whaaa…” she mumbled, blinking slowly, Jesse feeling as if he could hear the lids closing and opening as she turned her attention from the TV screen towards Jesse. “Woah, dude, I… didn’t see you coming, I was looking at a movie, wanna join me?” she gestured towards the TV.

Jesse took a moment to look at the screen, seeing a… woman in red dress and a white cat mask making a weird dance while some synthesizer music played in the background. The scene changed to a man holding a gun, most likely pointed at the woman. The scene changed back to the woman, making the same weird dance, moving her left hand like a paw and spinning a couple of times on the stop on the same music.

This time, the man lowered the gun, on his hand appearing a tentative smile.

And the woman did her dance once again, this time pulling out an Uzi.

The movie ended right there and then, on the screen appearing the title of: Videoclub Mysterio.

Jesse looked at the woman with a raised eyebrow.

“It was great wasn’t it?”

“Uh, sure, sure, it was… alright.”

“Thanks, man! It’s good to see other movie connoisseurs around here.” The woman coughed. “Say, dude, I’m Nell, I don’t think I ever saw you here before, you new here?”

“Um, yeah, I started today…”

“Oh, that’s so cool, dude!” she fist pumped. “Finally, someone sane!” Jesse couldn’t help but stare at Nell. “Oh, yeah, heh, uh, I don’t want to make your first day here feel bad, but the company is a bit – “

“I know, I saw what was in Office D, I saw the mines and I’m pretty sure that won’t be the end of it.”

“Oof, sorry to hear, dude.” Nell went quiet for a second, filling the room with an awkward silence if not for the TV turning towards a new video, this time a horse and duck saying Mister Fileto in a sing-song voice. “Oh, yeah, take this dude!” Suddenly, Nell gave Jesse a pencil. “You said you saw the mines, no? just stab them in the eye with this and splat! They be dead!”

“I…”, started Jesse, raising an eyebrow. “Thanks?”

“You’re welcome, dude. It’s the least I could do to help, especially in this company…” Nell once again got quiet, but the silence was less awkward, more melancholic.

“Hey, uh, I heard that there was some kind of Playback Room here? I have a cassette and I want to see if I could play it?”

“Oh?” Nell said, blinking quickly. “Oh! Yeah, there is a cassette player in the room next door. It’s got a VHS player too if you ever wanna watch some tapes over here.” Nell pointed at the quite gigantic pile of VHS tapes in the corner of the room.

“Uhh, maybe another time, I have some work to do and the faster I do it, the better.”

“Cool, dude. I’ll be here if you need me!” with a smile, she waved goodbye to Jesse and went back to the TV, this time showing a woman holding a white mask coming closer to the screen.

Jesse had to admit, he thought while closing the door behind him, it felt good to see someone, somewhat, normal in this building.

Anyways, the room next door? Well, he had the name, the authors, he nearly forgot to write them down, H. Kramer and J. Sprenger, the publishing house and all that’s left is the date. Which should be on this cassette tape.

Jesse opened the door and entered the room –

Only to hear the loud beep of a mine under his foot.

Jesse pulled his foot back, but it was too late.

The last thing Jesse remembered was being thrown out of the room with all the air exiting his lungs before hitting something hard and the world suddenly getting dark.


	11. Meeting with The Devil

Jesse first washed hands then his face, the cold water making his flesh feel like it was prickled with thousands of needles. And yet, this was what he needed, something that would push him back to reality, something that would push him forwards.

Looking in the bathroom mirror ahead of him, Jesse saw only a tired young man. How much did it pass? It couldn’t have been more than a couple of hours. A couple of hours, huh… A bitter laugh escaped Jesse’s lips, it took him only a couple of hours to get him to this state.

Jesse ran a shaky hand through his hair –

And his blood froze solid.

On his hand. A sign. Red as blood.

A snake in the shape of S, a crown sitting atop of the snake’s head.

A sight burned into Jesse’s mind, all he could think or see was the Snake. The Snake, the Snake, the Snake, theSnakeTheSnakeTheSnake.

The Devil.

The Devil himself was in the mirror.

His face was a mask, red as blood, lips big and tightly closed, same color as the rest of the face, with two long horns coming out of his forehead. An eye was black, a void. The other eye was red. Red as the fire, red as blood.

The mirror cracked and turned into a web of shards. Then, it broke.

\----

“Jesse? Jesse, dude? Are you there, dude? C’mon!” Jesse felt someone lightly slapping his check. “C’mon, dude, I’ve lost enough friends already, I can’t lose another one!”

“Wha…” murmured Jesse, eyelids heavy. “Who…?” wait, he remembered that voice. “Nell…”

“Jesse, dude!” Jesse could feel his strength return to him, but he still needed some time until he could see clearly again. However, even in this state he couldn’t mistake the feeling of someone hugging him. “Oh, man, I heard an explosion just after you left my room and I thought you died, man! Don’t do that ever again, you understand?”

“I…’ll do what I can.” Jesse managed to say, even though he didn’t believe it. He had a feeling that whatever was in this building hasn’t even started showing what its capable of.

Nell looked at Jesse with narrowed eyes, only to sigh.

“It’s only you first day, Jesse dude, do more than what you can, most don’t get past the first day.”

“That’s not very reassuring…” said Jesse, feeling a sweat drop form on his forehead

“I… sorry, dude. Don’t have many friends to speak to anymore…” Nell looked away for a moment, her shoulders slumping.

“I’ll… do my best, Nell.” Jesse raised himself from the floor, his back and head aching like hell and gave Nell a stiff hug, both thanks to the pain and from not knowing exactly what to do. He… considered her a friend, but they still knew each other for… 15/20 minutes maybe.

Nell hugged him back however.

“You owe me a movie night, if you live.” Nell said, breaking the hug.

Although it pained a dark look upon the rest of the day, Jesse couldn’t help but laugh.

Jesse opened his mouth, thinking of saying something clever in response, but found his mind blank. Hmmm, well then.

“Oh, and I killed the mine for you.” Nell pulled Jesse off his thought train, pointing towards the green splatter at the Playback Room entrance. “Dude, I’ll be honest, you’re lucky. Most would lose their legs. Then die.”

“Lovely image…”

“Gotta say, someone must love you up there, Jesse dude.”

Jesse looked up, he only saw the ceiling.

“He sure does have a funny way of showing it.” And as if to strengthen his point, with a wave of his hand, Jesse showed Nell the hall.

“Yeah… Yeah, can’t argue there…” Nell couldn’t help but smile awkwardly. “Alright, Jesse dude, I won’t keep you from doing your job.” She winked at him. “I’ll be off on the fifth floor reception. Visit me if you can.” Nell nodded towards Jesse, him being too surprised to reveal that he too worked on fifth floor.

And with that Nell left, leaving Jesse again alone in the halls of SintraCorp.

But, somehow, they didn’t feel as empty now that he had a friend.

\---

How do these stuff work again?!

The Playback room was simpler that he imagined, a giant TV with a VHS player and a cassette player with a pair of giant headphones that covered his entire ears. Thank God that the cassette player had its buttons name otherwise he would have stayed here a long time just trying to see what each button did.

And after a few buttons pressed wrong and putting the cassette backwards once, Jesse finally managed to hear something.

A slow labored breathing, that Jesse felt like it came from behind him.

“1...” Jesse almost jumped out of his skin, the low gravely voice coming literally out of nowhere. “4… 8…. 6…”

“1 4 8 6” Jesse repeated the numbers slowly, the realization dawning on him “1486! The year of publication!” Jesse pulled the headphones off his ear, taking a moment to rub the soreness out of them, before pulling out all the papers out of his suitcase and writing down on the form everything that needed to be written down.

There! The form for the Hexxenhammer was complete!

And his enthusiasm deflated when a voice in his head, a small voice, all things considered, reminded him that the company won’t make it easy for him to retrieve the book. Jesse sighed, stopped the cassette, organized the papers, leaving them in the corner of the desk, near the player and left the room.

A moment passed.

Then two.

And from inside of the headphones, loud enough to fill the whole room, the low, gravely voice began to laugh.

\---

The form was rejected.

“Huh?” wondered Jesse, receiving the paper back. He did everything right, what was he missing?

Looking over the terminal screen, Jesse found the reason. He needed an official SintraCorp seal. Which brought up the question, where could he find one? From what he knew, there weren’t any bosses or officials that could stamp his form.

Nell said that she worked at the Fifth Floor’s reception, she could have a stamp.

Or maybe he could ask Sintra, after all she was the one that send him on this mission, it wouldn’t surprise him if she had one.

Well, one way or another, it seemed that he had to reach Fifth Floor anyways.

\----

Before Jesse could even press the button for the fifth floor, the elevator started by itself, going down. Jesse swallowed the hard knot formed in his throat and pressed the fifth floor button. Repeatedly. All if it of no use, the elevator continuing his descent.

Down to the… cafeteria?

The elevator doors opened wide, welcoming in... A huge bearded man, with a short, almost buzzcut hair. Just as tall, maybe just a bit more even, as Axel, but where Axel was more in the… fat category, this guy was in the muscular one.

Which didn’t help, seeing how his skin was pale as paper and his eyes were empty and glazed over, like many other office drones he saw on the Fifth Floor.

“Uh, sir, are you feeling alright?” Jesse finally managed to ask. The man only groaned in response, Jesse wasn’t sure if the man even heard him, much less realized that there was someone alongside him in the elevator. “Sir…?”

“Grub grub,” he murmured, his breathing becoming labored. “Grub grub in my tum tum.” The man turned around and pressed the button, his hand sliding off the button afterwards as if he spent all his energy on just this action.

“Um…” why had Jesse begun to feel a dread growing in his stomach? One that wasn’t helped by the elevator beginning its ascensions towards the Fifth Floor.

For a second it was all silent, well, as silent as it can be with the man’s labored breathing and the sound of the elevator going up.

“Do you know what it wants?” the man began, out of nowhere.

“Huh?”

“It wants our blood. Our flesh and blood! Down in the depth, it awaits, patient as always, for the blood will always flow and the flesh will always be cut!” The man looked at Jesse, his eyes still blank and glazed over, yet something in them seeing Jesse. “And your blood belongs to it.”

With a DING, the elevator doors opened. With no other word, the man left the elevator, leaving behind a pale faced Jesse. It took Jesse a moment to realize that the man left the elevator box and he was alone again. Blinking twice, Jesse released the breath he didn’t knew he held in.

“What the hell was that?” murmured Jesse to himself as he exited the elevator, back into the familiar halls of the Fifth Floor.

Fortunately for him, the first thing that welcomed him was the sight of a bored Nell at the reception desk, right at the corner that takes him from and to the hallway containing his office. He passed by this desk so many times by now, how did he manage to miss it? … Well, in his defense, until now, he had no reason to check it out and had other more important tasks in mind.

Taking sight of him, Nell took off her headphones and beckoned Jesse to join her.

To which Jesse didn’t even hesitate.

“Yooo, Jesse dude, you came!” Nell raised herself up from her chair and caught Jesse’s hand in a rather complicated handshake. “What brings you to the Fifth Floor?”

“Well, one thing is, would you believe when I say that I work here?”

“Really?” Nell made a surprised face, before nodding and sitting back down on her chair, feet on the desk. “Man, you didn’t you tell me earlier?” Jesse only raised an eyebrow to that question. “Yeah, fair enough, I should have expected you to work here, to be fair.”

“Huh? Why so?”

“Uh…” Nell looked away for a second. “You have the face of someone that works here.” She then chuckled weakly.

That was a poor lie, even he managed to see through it. But he would let it slide for now, he trusted Nell enough, in the little time they had together, but he trusted her still.

“And the second thing, um, I need an official SintraCorp seal for a form, do you have one?”

“Uhh,” Nell stood thinking for a short second, only to shrug. “Sorry, Jesse dude, I don’t think so. Or at least there were no stamps here when I came to work at the reception. You’ve gotta check with the virtual lady.” For a second, Jesse thought that Nell’s eyes widened, but must’ve been from how he blinked

“Well,” Jesse shrugged too, “thanks anyways. I’ll see ya later, Nell.”

And when Jesse was ready to open his office door, a small voice stopped him dead cold.

How did she know of Sintra? No, wait, it was known that Sintra is part of SintraNet. How did Nell know that he had work to with Sintra?

Jesse looked back at the reception desk, as much as he could see from this angle. Nell knew more than she let on. Nell knew much more than she let on. Stuff that could put Jesse’s life on the line.

Jesse opened the door without looking back at the desk.

He didn’t have to.

\----

Axel straightened his shoulder the moment he heard the door open. Plastering the most honest smile he could muster, Axel burned back towards the door and opened his mouth –

Only to automatically sigh and let his shoulders relax, greeting Jesse with a small smile

“Hey, Jesse!” wait, were they called Jesse? “Jesse, was it, right?”

“Oh, hey, Axel.” Jesse took a moment to look around. “Soren isn’t here?” Axel flinched at the mention of Soren, but Jesse didn’t seem to observe or didn’t take it as important.

“No no, he left a while ago to, uhhh,” Yeah, did he even say where he wanted to go? “Actually, he didn’t tell me where he went, he just left the office and didn’t come back yet. Why, you saw him around?”

“I don’t think so, just… “ there was something more to Soren that the eye could see. “… I haven’t seen him anywhere, other than the office.”

“Oh, you just caught him in the moments where he is in the office, he’s more likely to wander around on all floors.”

“Really? He doesn’t really seem like the person who would do that, seeing how his first advice to me was to not work?”

“Eh, he might seem like that, but once he has something in mind, he would do anything to do it. Soren didn’t tell us much about his past in the company, but he did start as a simple paper boy and look where he is now.”

“Oh, really?” maybe he was just an ambitious man. Still, he needed to be careful, Jesse would rather not stand in front of someone’s ambitions. “And he stopped here?”

“Ah, no, this floor is just the safest, excepting Office D… Oh…” Axel realized too late what he said.

“I know, Axel, I was in Office D, I know what this company is like. I know we can’t leave.”

“Oh…” Axel rubbed the back of his head. “I’m sorry you had to see that Jesse, I would have explained to you earlier, but… “Jesse could see how Axel’s eyes looked right and left before making a sign, calling Jesse forth. Jesee looked at Axel weird for a moment, but he did as he was asked. “There are eyes in every corner of this building, The Witches Children are everywhere around us, they are her eyes, even if she let’s them do what they want.”

“And what are we supposed to do with the Chil – “ Axel shushed him.

“Don’t be interesting. Be as boring as you can and She won’t have you in her crosshair. Do your work.” Axel looked around. “So, Jesse, what do you at SintraCorp, I don’t think I actually asked?”

“Oh, uh,” There was no way he could tell Axel that he was a Hunter, if what he told him was true. “Notary management of… members. That’s why I had to go to the Archives.” While Jesse wasn’t sure before, now he saw Axel flinch. “Uh, what’s wrong?”

“Watch out for the mines.” He said quickly. “I heard more than enough stories from Nell about them.”

“You know Nell? I just met her while I was in the Archives.”

“Yeah.” Axel nodded. “She’s been here for a while by now, five years by now, if I remember right. It’s nice that you’ve known her, she really does know a thing or two about the company. Even about some of its workers, if you know who to ask about.”

“Ah, I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks, Axel.” Jesse said, moving past Axel towards the old computer.

“No problem, man. Just take care around, this company is more dangerous than it would seem.”

“Don’t tell me what I already know…” Jesse half said, half muttered, as he inserted the card into the computer’s slot, soon his mind entering SintraNet.

\---

And finding Sintra nowhere to be seen in this green world, there was only him and the opened email icon.

“Sintra?” he asked out loud, receiving no answer.

Jesse was hesitant to look around, but he needed Sintra’s help. She must be somewhere, right? I mean, she might be a program, but she is still in SintraNet, right?

And as hesitant Jesse was to enter the dark parts of this place, he heard something from deep inside. Something squeaking, a rhythmic squeaking, it actually reminded him of something back from when he was a kid.

Staying almost glued to the wall, Jesse went on forward, the squeaking sound getting louder and louder. It was still dark when he ran out of wall to hold on. Peeking from behind the wall, Jesse found a peculiar sight.

The squeaking sound, it came from a swing. A swing currently used by Sintra herself.

“Sintra?” Jesse asked, coming from inside the dark.

“Oh, hello, mister Fadden.” She said in her usual robotic voice. “With what I might assist you?”

Jesse’s mind blanked for a second, he knew he had something important to do, but there was something else on his mind at that very moment.

“Why is there a swing here?” Sintra stopped swinging and pushed herself back on her feet, instead pointing Jesse towards it.

“It’s an instrument for relaxation and mind clearing, you can try it if you wish.” Jesse blinked twice at the response, but he mentally shrugged and went on the swing, going back and forth a few times.

“It… was okay.” He said, not having a bad or good opinion of the swing. “I haven’t been on a swing since I was a little kid, to be honest. And the last time I went in a playground was when I took my little brother Reuben there.” He said with a small smile, only for that small smile to disappear when he remembered that he might very well not come out of this company, not alive in any case.

“Something wrong, Mister Fadden?”

“Yes, the company.” He said, without thinking. And even then, he wasn’t about to take them back.

“Ah, I understand. This is why you must prioritize the mission. After you finished the mind clearing break, I would ask to join me for any assistance I could provide.” She said, starting to go back towards her usual place.

“No, I’m done for now. Let’s go.” He said, joining her towards the starting location. “Actually, uh, I need an official SintraCorp Stamp for entering the Library.” he said, while pulling out the form from out of suitcase. “I hope I did, right?”

Sintra took a moment to look over the form, well, Jesse thought that she looked it over, seeing as her eyes weren’t quite eyes in the conventional sense.

“Yes, it is adequate.” She said, giving the form back to Jesse, now with a stamp of approval on the upper right corner of the paper. “Much success in your future endeavor, Mister Fadden.”

“Thank you, Sintra.” And with that, Jesse put the form back in the suitcase and wandered towards the exit –

Only to receive a new email.

Curious, Jesse opened the email.

_To all Fifth Floor employes,_

_This is a reminder for the weekly motivational meeting held at Office C at the hour 11 AM. Your presence is obligatory._

_Singed_

_Colonel Dumond_

“Motivational meeting?” he asked out loud.

“SintraCorp prides itself on it’s motivational speaker and counselors for a relaxing and free of stress work life. It has been scientifically proven that such meetings be it personal or in group have increased work productivity.” Jesse only stared dumbfounded at Sintra. “I would recommend going to this meeting, Mister Fadden.”

“Well… it did say obligatory…” Jesse mumbled, pressing the exit button and finding himself back in his office. Looking around, Jesse saw Axel on his computer, looking positively bored and scrolling and clicking randomly.

“Oh, hey.” He said, barely raising his eyes from the screen. “We don’t really have internet access here and there’s barely any telephone signal either. I’m actually playing Solitaire.”

“Slow day?” Axel chuckled softly at this.

“We receive work assignments, but I don’t know how and why. But to be fair, I stopped caring a long time ago.” Axel stretched for a moment. “I’m gonna make myself a coffee, want one Jesse?”

“No, thanks, I have some work to do.”

“Alright, suit yourself. The coffee maker is here if you ever need it and the cafeteria is free to raid.”

“Thanks, Axel, again.” Jesse put his hand on the door handle. “I’ll… see you soon, I guess. And I hope.”

“Me too, man, me too, you really seem like a great guy. We lost too many by this time.”

“Not the prettiest of pictures, but thanks anyways… again?”

“Anytime, man.”

And with a last nod, Jesse left the Office E for the Archives once again.


	12. The Spiders in The Library

Jesse watched with his breath stuck in his throat as the terminal ate up his form and scanned it. He knew it was good, he had everything that he needed, including the SintraCorp Official Seal, and yet he couldn’t help but worry.

Thankfully, the terminal had the same ideas as him.

On the screen appeared the words “Form Approved” and the giant mahogany doors opened, allowing him access to the Library itself.

Well, he had to find a book and a meeting to attend, the last thing he wanted now was to waste time. With a hard gulp, Jesse went on forward and passed into the Library.

\---

When he said that the Library doors themselves looked like they would belong to libraries of centuries past, something that only old mystics and sages would have, he didn’t expect to be right. While it was much smaller, no more than four shelves starting from the wall and stopping in the middle, leaving enough space for an ornate case holding a green book.

And it wasn’t the case the only one ornate, the bookshelves themselves seemed to be made more for style, rather than utility, a use which was ignored seeing how randomly were the books squeezed together, no matter the size, color or content, and that doesn’t include the piles of books left on the floor, next to the – candles?

Now he saw them, there were candles everywhere in this library, a fire hazard, yet their light doing nothing but to strengthen the already existing atmosphere. At the very least, as he saw them, none of them were actually that close to the books or papers to actually start a fire. Thankfully enough.

And then, Jesse came upon a sad sight.

A man face down on the wooden floor, a pool of dried blood underneath him and a flashlight flashing intermittently around him. Jesse was no doctor, but from the wounds in his back, the man seemed to have been stabbed three times in the back with some kind of thin blade. Who or what did this appears to have left the place by now, as far as Jesse knew, he was the only living being in the Library.

Shaking his head at the poor man, Jesse prepared himself to search for the Hexxenhammer, when an idea struck him. He didn’t know how much time would his telephone battery would last. Or even if he had the time to recharge it. But batteries are meant to last a while.

“I’m sorry, sir.” Jesse said to the body. “I’ll try to do my best.” He said, shaking the flashlight a bit, then giving it a good smack, the intermittent flashing turning into a permanent beam of light. “Much better…” he murmured, looking around.

Well, at least he could read the covers and the roman numbers now.

Still, going around the library looking on the shelves, in the book piles, on the books stands in front of every shelf, on the book carts decorated with lifelike statues of owls, he couldn’t find anything related to the Hexxenhammer.

Maybe it was hidden? After all, it’s an important book, it’s one thing that he had to find it, but another if the subject of the book was to find it.

And yet, he had no idea wjere to start looking for? Maybe there was some fake wall? Fake shelf? Fake book?

However, a small alcove caught Jesse’s eye.

It was a lifelike portrait of a larger, but strong looking man, dressed in lapis blue clothes and with red eyes, in his hands holding an open book. Around his head, like a crown were four circles, each having its own color and roman number. Purple – XIII, Red – VII, Green – IX and Blue – IV.

Jesse tilted his head, thinking for a second, he did see a green book in a case, the shelves were numbered with roman numbers and some of the books stands had open books on them, but he didn’t actually try to keep them in mind.

And now he saw it, under the portrait was a button.

Out of curiosity, Jesse pressed it.

It started with a slam. The alcove behind him closed shut!

Then it was a hiss. Before he knew it, Jesse’s throat and eyes burned. It wasn’t just a simple itchiness, it was as if fire itself was pushed down Jesse’s throat and eyes.

He didn’t know why, it was more out of instinct rather than rational thought, but Jesse pressed the button again, the alcove opening again and the hissing stopping, letting fresh air come in and dispel this poisonous gas.

It took Jesse a good few minutes until he could stop coughing, ending up only after he coughed out small droplets of blood. Thankfully, the only thing coming out of his eyes was tears, cleaning up whatever poisonous residue from the gas.

Well, that was stupid of him.

However, there was something telling him that the button wasn’t there just for a trap, after all, he didn’t see any other buttons or levers. Out of curiosity, Jesse knocked on the painting. The painting did nothing to stop Jesse’s fingers from stopping the wall behind it.

Still, looking at the painting, Jesse had an idea.

And, well, to be fair, what else could he do?

And the three books occupying the book stands, the color of their cover was exactly the same shade as the circles in the painting. Now, to put them in the right place, Red on VII, Purple on XIII, Blue on IV.

All that’s left is Green.

Currently inside a locked glass bookcase.

Damn it.

Maybe one of the carts had a key or something like that?

And yet he couldn’t find any.

Jesse sighed deeply and rested on the cart, trying to find a way to open the case – only for the cart to move from underneath Jesse, who didn’t expect the cart to be so easily moved, and away from him. And before Jesse could realize what had happened, he heard a crash. And glass breaking.

Jesse couldn’t help but cringe as he came closer to the result of his actions.

The glass case was completely shattered, shards of all shapes and sizes being strewn around it.

But it also freed up the green book.

Why did Jesse feel like this is gonna end up a common occurrence in working in this company?

Sifting through the glass shards, Jesse managed to get the Green book, now standing on the bookstand in front of shelf IX.

_ CLICK _

Was that his imagination? Or did Jesse hear a click? A click coming from the alcove if he thought about it.

Peeking around the corner, Jesse didn’t find anything changed towards the alcove, the painting was unchanged, so were the walls and the button. Still, he heard something coming from here, there was no mistake, but Jesse had to ask himself, did he want to test his luck.

Honestly, no, he did not.

Jesse pressed the button.

And the wall in front of him began to raise itself up, revealing a poorly lit hallway made entirely out of bookshelves. A short look at the books revealed… nothing much actually. Well, they were old, in other languages and with weird magical looking symbols on the spines, but none of them were actually named Hexxenhammer. He was getting close, however.

Passing near a book cart, Jesse stopped dead in tracks.

Well then.

A mine was standing in the middle of the hallway eye still closed.

Unfortunately enough, the hallway was too tight for Jesse to sidestep the mine and he didn’t trust himself enough to stab it in the eye with a pencil as Nell advised him.

Wait, the book cart!

If he could point it right…

Directing the cart so the wheels would go right over the eyes, Jesse pushed with all his force, the cart going forward as if the wheels were brand new and the floor was made out of ice.

Jesse heard a big boom and a squelch, followed by the cart noisily being knocked to the side.

As hesitant as he was to check out the mine, Jesse couldn’t help but walk over and see what happened.

Much to his relief, his aim was true, the cart’s wheels hitting the eye and destroying it.

Passing the dead mine and the cart, Jesse went on forward, passing around dark corners of the bookshelf hallway finding nothing but random books… and a few red enveloped letters.

“Fred, my friend, don’t trust anyone else in this rotten company, you can never know who is one of Her Children. Here, we can only trust ourselves. Signed, Xara.” Was written on one of the letters. “My friend, if what Romeo said it’s true, then we have a way to defeat her, I will let you know the details in short order. Signed, Xara.” The last one however, the handwriting was nearly illegible. “Fred, our names have been found, we must hide, quick, before She can truly find us” the last one wasn’t even signed, just messily stuffed into the red envelope, forgotten in the darkness of the Library.

And the hallways ended in what Jesse could describe as a sage’s study, bookshelves hitting the ceiling, giant books piles strewn around and a massive dark wood desk with a cloth covering, numerous papers and an ink bottle and a feather.

And the mummified body standing on the chair behind the desk, bowed over an open book on the desk.

“Hexxenhammer…” murmured Jesse, cautiously approaching the body. He was head to toe covered in bandages – wait, no, in some kind of silk, like a human cocoon.

Jesse stopped his hand an inch away from the book, for a second fearful that the body would come to life and grab his hand. But this didn’t happen, the body stayed inert, the light of the candles casting dancing shadows over his covered face.

For a second, a name slithered in his head, like a soft whisper.

Fred.

Jesse knew who this body belonged to.

With a quick motion, Jesse closed the book and took it away from the body, it remaining still as a statue. Hesitatingly taking his eyes away from the body, Jesse looked at the cover – and finding it written on the cover, if in a flowery and too cursive font, Hexxenhammer.

For a second, Jesse let himself release a sign of relief.

He did it, he found the Hexxenhammer.

All he had to do now…

Was to take it back…

\---

The road back was quiet, the hallway was dark and empty, it didn’t take Jesse long until he managed to reach the Library proper.

And there he heard the crawling on the ceiling, as if something tried to stab the stone with knives. Out of reflex, Jesse looked up with his flashlight, nearly dropping it out of shock.

Half of the creature's body was a human torso, tightly wrapped in the same silk Fred’s body was wrapped in his study. The other half… was massive, bulbous, and bumpy, filled to the brim with something, something ready to burst at the slightest disturbance, all of that fused with eight thing, long, metal legs, like those of spider, sharpened until the point could enter easily in the stone making the ceiling.

With a horrible his, the creature opened the human torso’s mouth, larger than what was humanly possible, revealing a sickly green eye with a red iris, looking down at Jesse.

“I’m afraid I can’t let take hisss favorite book.” It said with such a soft tone, nearly making Jesse drop his guard, before leaping with a hiss at Jesse. A second too late, thought Jesse’s instincts, as he barely jumped out of the way of the monster.

With another hiss, the creature tried to skewer Jesse with one of it’s sharp limbs, Jesse taking a step back and tripping on his own legs, by chances the metal limb missing his by a few millimeters and imbedding in the wooden floor.

Taking advantage of the situation, Jesse scrambled back on his feet and tried to run for the exit, an endeavor cut short as the creature freed itself faster than he expected and jumped in front of Jesse, threatening to skewer him once again, missing only because Jesse then went left.

Frantically looking around, Jesse’s eyes fell upon the book cart and pushed it back with all the force he could muster.

He didn’t dare look back, but the scream of surprise he heard told him more than enough. However, the sound of silk breaking and something soft and wet hitting the ground didn’t ease his worries at all.

“Looks at what you’ve done!” the creature screamed. “My babies!” it screamed, coming at Jesse with a much bigger speed than before.

Jesse took another turn, looking among the shelves for another book cart, making another sudden turn and pushing the cart towards the monster he dared not look back towards. This time, he didn’t hear a scream of surprise, he heard the creature leaping over the cart and continuing the chase without breaking its stride.

And so Jesse continued to run through the Library’s bookshelves, realizing that if he couldn’t find something, anything that would stop this monster he would surely die!

And then he saw it. A pile of green goo covered mines, their eyes blinking in confusion.

Wait a second.

For the first time in this entire chase, Jesse dared to look back and saw that the monster’s silk was ripped in many places and it started to leak a green liquid, while its bulbous half was a bit less bumpy than before. And near the mines, but far enough so he wouldn’t activate himself, was another book cart. Then and there, a plan formed in Jesse’s head.

Putting more force in his legs, Jesse gained a burst of speed, running behind the books cart and waiting, hearing as the metal limbs stabbing the floor came closer and closer until he could see it.

Then, with all his strength, Jesse pushed the cart.

The monster didn’t expect it, the cart hitting it full force, it being thrown off course and off of its legs. Into the pile of mines. Scared and confused, the mines did what they knew best. They exploded.

The screams, the shrieks, Jesse didn’t hear, didn’t know could hear, until today, as the creature was ripped apart by its own babies.

And yet, it didn’t die, it jumped back on its feet and ran away, flesh and entrails trailing behind it, it’s screams and shrieks getting softer and softer until they disappeared.

Then, he heard the most unexpected sound of them all, of an owl. Squeaking and creaking as if it was out of wood, one of the owl statues from the book cart just… came to life, one of its eyes gleaming a deep, blood red color. It flapped its wings once, then twice then took flight away from this Library.

Jesse, in face with such a whiplash, didn’t know if he should cry, scream or laugh.

He just chuckled and laid down knees held close to his chest.

\----

Jesse came up to an empty office, no sign of Axel and Soren no matter how much he rubbed his eyes.

And now that he thought of it, he didn’t see Nell at the reception either…

Where was everyone?

Jesse was tempted to check out where they could’ve gone, but a green screen on an old desk reminded him that he had something else to do first.

With a tired sigh, Jesse sat down at the desk and inserted his card into the computer’s slot, closing his eyes as he was taken to SintraNet.

\---

“Mister Fadden.” Sintra’s robotic voice welcome him, not that Jesse was feeling up for it.

“Here’s the damn book.” He said, slamming the book into her robotic hands.

“Is everything alright, Mister Fadden?”

“No! Of course it’s not! I was nearly killed by some kind of mechanical spider-monster that gave birth to bombs and – and – and – UGH!” Jesse slammed his head in his palms, laundry groaning behind them. “I want this nightmare to end already! Why couldn’t I have a normal office job? One where I could check spreadsheets and do nothing from 8 to 3?”

“I am truly sorry to hear that, Mr. Fadden. I understand this isn’t an easy task and that your responsibility in the company would put incredible pressure upon yourself. We at Sintracorp have great belief in the capabilities of our employees and I personally believe you can finish this contract, the fact that you brought the book just proves it.” Jesse looked at Sintra with a squint, whatever motivational stock phrases she was trying to convey, they sure didn’t work. “Don’t think however that your successes in the company aren’t rewarded. As we have talked before, you have won a bonus of 1000 credits.” Jesse had to admit, the money sounded good, but that didn’t lift the damper placed upon him. “I will transfer them in this very moment.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“Now, let us look over the contents of the book.”

The books dematerialized in her hand and an icon of a book being scanned appeared on green walls behind Sintra.

“Ah… I see… Interesting…” she murmured as the book icon opened and pages after page was scanned.

“So, uh, what did you find?”

“Reading complete.” Sintra turned back towards Jesse. “As I have shown you earlier, this is a fifteenth century treatise on locating, hunting and elimination witches. I will explain the relevant portions for your ease.” The book icon disappeared, now it being replaced with a house, a person with a question mark and a fire. “First: locating a Witch. A witch’s lair is usually a place of deep meaning or bond for the witch, although solitary and living away from urban settlements, they have been known to infiltrate such settlements with ease.

Second: discovering the witch’s identity. A witch is a woman who made a pact with the devil for power. They are known as agents of corruption, corrupting men, women and children for their dark bidding, their expertise in dark magic and the ability to fly on brooms. Although solitary, the majority of witches are known to use what are known as familiars – magical animal spirits – as company and magical assistance. Any woman can be a witch, their powers including transmigration, the ability to swap bodies with other persons.”

And third and last: how to kill a witch. Fire is the most used and successful method of exterminating a witch. However, there are tales of witches that couldn’t be killed even by fire, such as our witch, who was killed four decades ago, yet her curse continued to spread through the company. For this, we would require a different solution.” The icon changed from a fire to a knife. “This is the Athame, a powerful magic dagger said to kill even the most powerful of witches while also serving as protection from a witch’s effects.”

“This all feels like a fairytale…” murmured Jesse.

“What do you mean, Mister Fadden?”

“I mean, all of this!” he waved towards the three icons. “While I believe in witches nowadays, don’t you feel like using a five hundred years old book wouldn’t be of much help? I mean, brooms? In this day and age?”

“What do you have in mind then, Mister Fadden?”

“I… Ugh, I don’t know, but I feel like an out of date book would be of much help in this situation.” Jesse sighed deeply and walked towards the exit. “I’ll try to think of something, I… I really need a coffee.”

But before he could exit, he heard the loudest neighing he heard in entire life.

“What was that?”

“Ah, it seems like the motivational meeting has begun. I wish you the best of luck there, Mister Fadden. Remember, you shouldn’t tell anyone your task in this company. Goodbye, Mister Fadden.”

And with that Jesse was forcibly evicted out of SintraNet.

Only to be face to face with a horse’s face.

To say that Jesse screamed and fell off his chair would be an understatement.

“There you are, shortstack,” he heard the gravelly voice of a man from on the horse. “You are late to the motivational meeting! C’mon! What are standing there for? Move!”

It took a moment until Jesse realized what was happening.

“Whaaa…?” was the only thing he could say towards the scene in front of him.


	13. Motivational Meeting

Jesse had to say, as far as he saw it, this motivational meeting was just like a high school assembly, the guests looking positively bored out of their minds and the speaker looking at the guests with thinly veiled disdain. Although, in this case, the disdain wasn’t even thinly veiled.

Outside of a more than a few office drones, Jesse saw a couple of familiar faces, Axel, bored out his mind, Nell, quite despairing, mostly out of boredom, Soren, smiling, yet his eyes were empty, the guy from the elevator, now having a healthier look on their face, but looking ready to drop dead from boredom and two new faces. One was a woman with chin long brown hair, not even trying to hide her disdain at the man calling them here, and a blond woman in a purple suit who was looking at Jesse with a weird interest.

And then there was the man himself, the motivational speaker, high on a brown horse, dressed in green army fatigues as if he came out of the Napoleonian era.

“Alright then, you sorry pieces of work! On this wonderful day,” he said with sarcasm, “we have a new worker along us.” Jesse felt more than a couple of side eyes turn towards him. “And for that, I will introduce myself, my name is Colonel Magnus Dumond! Now, don’t you forget that name, it’s one of the most important you will learn in this company! With that out of the way, let us begin the meeting!” Magnus’ horse neighed. “Alright then, short stacks, who are you!?”

“The lowest of the low!” until today, Jesse didn’t realize that someone can make fake enthusiasm sound unenthusiastic. Not that it mattered to the colonel.

“Hmph, I doubt it. What are you?!”

“We’re garbage!”

“Ugh, what a waste of a workforce! And what should you be?”

“The best!”

“What?!”

“The best of the best!”

“And how will you achieve that?”

“Through our work!”

“I don’t want your worthless work! What else do you have!?”

“Our blood!” Magnus nodded and looked over the group assembled in front of him, until it fell upon Soren. “Soren, come forward.” Inspiring deeply, Soren came forward, his smile unchanged. “Tell me, Soren, what are you?”

“Oh, I am nothing but the lowest of the low.”

“You stink, Soren, you always did.”

“Because I smell of garbage, of course.”

“And what do you want to become in this company?” Jesse might have mistook it, but Soren stood just a bit straighter, looking at Magnus himself now.

“The best…” Soren said, with a strong tone.

“What?!”

“The best of the best!” out of all the people assembled, Soren was the only one that said it something actually resembling true conviction.

“And how do you want to achieve that, Soren?”

“Through my work, of course.” He chuckled.

“I don’t think work will be the one, Soren. What else do you have?”

“Through blood, of course.”

“I know you will, Soren.” With a wave of his hand, Magnus dismissed Soren. “Alright! Today I will be speaking of you of a legend in this company! I will be telling you of the Witch!”

A soft breeze came upon the room, Jesse standing just a bit tense, while more than a few workers shifted around uncomfortably.

“Witches don’t exist, Colonel Magnus.” It was the short haired brunette, the one that opened her mouth.

“Oh, or so you think, Maya. The Witch is among us, She can take any form she wants. She can be the woman you speak to in the lift, the one you share coffee in the cafeteria, or even the wind in the long, dark hallways.” Magnus shook his head, before looking at the ground. “It even took the shape of my beloved Ellegard while hiding in the shadows. But” he then said, with a steel in his eyes, “this is not the same story. This happened no more than a couple of weeks ago.

Me and Dada over here, “the horse neighed,” were in the cafeteria enjoying our 15 minutes break, when realization hit us. We weren’t in the cafeteria for 15 minutes, we were in the cafeteria for more than half an hour! We had to return to our workspaces pronto! 

We all crammed into the elevator, pressing desperately on the button, hoping that the infernal machine would finally move.” Out of the corner of his eye, Jesse saw Soren walk behind the group towards the light switch. “It moved, slow as a turtle, but it moved. And yet, when it reached the floor, boom, the doors were stuck!

No matter how much I tried to calm them down, how much I tried to tell them that such a thing was normal in this building, tensions were rising, people were panicking, even I felt it coming up my spine, that fear, that freezing fear, one that could mean just one thing.

That the Witch was close.

And there, I felt it.

A kiss. Soft as silk. On my cheek.

In that moment… the lights went out”

Soren pressed the switch, plunging the room in pitch black darkness.

“Chaos exploded in the elevator. People screaming, pushing, hammering the door, desperate to escape the endless darkness.

And then, there was a sound.”

_Sssshhhhh._

Jesse heard the sound too. It was familiar, yet different.

It didn’t come from the witch. Not from someone under her control.

But someone who was aware of it.

“First, our cries were silenced. We knew what awaited us there, death. Certain death. Second, it was nothing more than a simple breeze, passing through and near each one of us, taking us to God knows where, never to be seen again. Third…

The doors opened, letting light in the elevator box.” Soren turned on the lights, again, now coming to stand next to Jesse.

“A few of us were missing, never to be seen again.

We were free.

We were safe.

But we weren’t alone either.

I remember icy lips near my ears, hissing three words.

Work.

Work.

Work.

What did she say?!”

“Work, work, work!” The group assembly said.

“And this is why you shouldn’t waste your time in the canteen. That, or be prepared for the consequences.”

Jesse blinked twice at the… advice at the end of the story. But again, he shouldn’t be surprised, this company has long since passed the line into insanity, the man on the horse in front of him being a good example of that.

“Now, shortstack.” Magnus pointed towards Jesse. “Come.” Hesitantly, Jesse came on forwards, trying to ignore the countless sets of eyes set upon him. “No no, leave you suitcase behind. Who are you, a member of this company, one of the best in this entire country, weak enough to hide behind a shield?” Jesse stared at Magnus for a second before leaving his suitcase behind.

“Good, now, Jesse Fadden was it not?” Jesse nodded. “Do you know the history of your name?”

“I… no?” What was the point of that question even?

“What a shame. Your history takes you back to the Scottish lands before the Norman conquests, back when your family name was known as Pàidean, a pet name of Pàdraig, itself a gaelic translation of Patrick. Do you know what Patrick means?” Jesse opened and closed his mouth, unable to find an answer. “It means leader, Mister Fadden. Do you see this horse, Jesse?”

“Uh,” Jesse and Dada looked each other straight in the eyes. “yeah, sure…?”

“Upon this horse I’m above each and everyone, I answer to no one. I am a leader, Jesse. Unlike you! Live up to your name, boy, live and be a true leader! Now, who are you?!”

“I’m Jess – “

“That wasn’t what I was asking, “dear leader.” I was asking who are you?!” Jesse still felt lost. “For every wrong answer you have a 200 credit penalization.” Wait, what was he supposed to say now? 

Wait, the reason why he was here! The motivational meeting!

“I’m – I’m – Uh, the lowest of the low?” he saw from the corner of his eye, Nell giving him a thumbs up.

“With a stench like that?!”

“I’m garbage?”

“And what would you want to be, Dear Leader?”

“The best?”

“What?! I couldn’t hear you!”

“The best of the best!”

“And how do you want to get there, Dear Leader?”

“Through, uh… “ Blood or work, blood or work? Uhh, wait, the blood wasn’t the first, Jesse was sure of that. “Through work!”

“Hmph, a good leader doesn’t just work for his company, he must give more to it. What will you give to your company?”

“I… my… blood?”

“As good as it’s gonna be, it seems. You lot… could do better, but you aren’t a lost case just yet. Alright then, this meeting is – “Dada neighed and shook its head. “What was that? … Ah, I see. Dear Leader, Dada has a task for you.” Jesse was already dreading what was to come. “The difference between a good and a poor leader is the trust they build within their workforce. Your task, Dear Leader, is to make a friend in the company.” Nell and Axel were ready to jump, but Magnus had another idea. “One from another floor.”

“Um… Um… Sure? I guess?”

“Good, you have until midnight to make a friend. Meeting’s done, time for a coffee break.”

\----

_Well, that was weird_ , Jesse thought, exiting the meeting office. _But then again, everything in this company is weird, so why am I surprised?_

“Jesse, my friend!” Soren called out to him, holding his briefcase. “You nearly left your briefcase behind!”

“Ah, thanks, Soren, I didn’t realize I left it behind.” Jesse said with a small smile.

“I’m sorry for the task with Colonel Magnus Dumond, but I’m pretty sure you can find a friend on one of the other floors.” Soren took a moment to think. “Hey, you might have seen them, but I heard there were two other new recruits in the company today. On the second and fourth floor.”

Olivia! And… Aiden.

“Oh, yeah, good point, Soren!” He had some good interactions with Olivia, he could ask her to be friends with him if he asked.

“No problem, my friend. I would do everything for this company, including helping a friend.”

“Oh, well, thanks then, I guess.”

Soren nodded back and went on forwards back to their office, leaving Jesse alone to think. Where should he go first? He still needed to do his “job”, but maybe he could find some clues on the fourth floor too.

But before he could reach a consensus, Jesse heard a voice behind him.

“Hey, you must be Jesse, are you not?” it was the larger, bearded man from the elevator the one that called him. “Hey, man, I’m Gill, I wanted to thank you for helping me in the elevator. And I, uh, wanted to say sorry for scaring you back there. Uh, well, I have some sleep problems, and the medication I take sometimes has the side effect of making me act as a zombie.”

“Oh, well, no worries then. I guess, uh… it happens?”

“Thanks, man. Or should I call you Dear Leader?” Jesse blinked slowly and unimpressed as Gill chuckled. “Anyways, I’ll leave you be, man. If you ever need some help, I’ll be in in Office B. See ya at the party tonight!”

And with that, Gill went back to his office, behind him the woman with blond hair and purple suit. She stopped at the entrance and looked back at Jesse with a small flirtatious smile. She winked and went inside, closing the door behind him.

Jesse simply left that part of the hallway, a small breeze bringing a shiver down his spine. Objectively, she did look like she was only flirting with him, but for him it felt like she was looking to drink his blood.


	14. Coming down the Hive

“Wow, it sure is dark in here.” Murmured Jesse, as the elevator doors opened into what seemed like an endless dark void, where the only sounds were the endless clickety-clacks of hundreds, maybe thousands of keyboards. “And, ugh, something stinks in here.” Jesse had to say, to say that the stench was horrible was an understatement.

Turning on his flashlight, Jesse saw that it wasn’t an exaggeration to say hundreds, maybe thousands of keyboards. Formerly hidden by the darkness, the floor was filled with rows and rows of cubicles, his flashlight not even reaching the end of them. Knowing the company, the floor might as well be endless.

Which just made his job of finding Olivia that much harder.

Maybe he could ask around?

Again, knowing the company, this floor was made of office drones. In other words, he would be lucky if they said anything, even more so something useful.

“Uh, sir, hello?” Jesse said to a pale man hunched over a keyboard, typing with what seemed to be superhuman speed. “I’m looking for a woman, dark skin, black hair arranged into a bun, have you seen her?” the man just… growled? “Uh, sir, are you alri – Woah!“ With no warning, a pencil was thrown towards Jesse, missing him by an inch and hitting the wall behind him and staying there. “Ah, alright, sorry, sir!”

Jesse left the man and went instead to another person, this time a woman.

A loud growl told Jesse he won’t find out much here either.

Shining his flashlight over many of the office drones in the cubicles, them not even reacting, Jesse realized that this was a waste of time, he would find Olivia easier if he simply looked around.

Going east he found just a wall of cubicles.

Going west he found he could go north or south.

Going south he found only a bizarre sight.

It was a giant printer, the kind you find on copy shops, but obviously much larger, bigger than Jesse, with four hands on each side. Real, giant human hands. And it was surrounded by simple office chairs and a few office drones just staring at it, their eyes empty as usual.

The machine seemed inactive, but that didn’t make Jesse feel any safer.

“Dot… Dot… Dot…” he heard the drones softly murmur as he went past them, down south.

Only to be stopped by what seemed like a green haze.

If the stench at the elevator was bad, the stench here was making Jesse lightheaded and nauseated. He left the place before his stomach decided it was too much for it to bear.

And all left was the north part of the floor.

Which actually turned out to be quite more open than what he saw before. Of course, it still was a true maze of hallways made out of cubicles, with pale, soulless office drones, some of them on all fours, just moving around most likely with their minds broken by the company.

And then Jesse went past an open cubicle filled to the brim with yellow flyers talking about some kind of unions? Does SintraCorp have unions even? Out of curiosity, Jesse picked up a random flyer, “Unite and Be Free”, it said in big black letters at the top.

“Hmm…” it seemed interesting, Jesse had to say, but he had no time to read it now. Maybe later, if he could.

“You’re making a good choice, Mister Fadden.” Said a deep voice from the dark, nearly making Jesse drop his flashlight. It was a tall man, with dark skin and short brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard. “I would like to help you more, but the eyes of the Enderman are everywhere.”

And with that, the man left the cubicle, leaving Jesse alone and confused in a cubicle filled with flyers and a A in a circle painted on the wall.

But to be honest, this was one of the most normal confusing thing he had seen in this company so far.

Continuing north, Jesse saw more weird things, a man in front of a blue-screened computer, a woman on all fours in half-wall cubicle surrounded by photos of exotic, tropical locations, a hallway that went east, before being blocked by a seemingly endless line of office drones, but the hallway then going splitting into a north and south side hallway.

He still had to go west, but it wouldn’t hurt to explore a bit more.

“… what did the doctor say?” he heard one woman speak from behind a cubicle wall.

“He said that my diet of coffee and noodles isn’t good for my health and said that I should go on a diet.” Jesse heard a man respond “Make diet you best medicine, he said. I didn’t have the time for that, so I asked if I could buy some multivitamin supplements.”

“That can’t be healthy.” Murmured Jesse going south.

Into what seemed like a scrapyard of computer parts. And in the middle of it was a tall red headed woman in a white shirt and suit pants trying to pry a man from munching on the wires inside a computer.

“Goddamn, goat! Leave the wires alone! They aren’t food!” she grunted, trying to drag the man from the computer case.

“Uh, can I help?” Jesse said, entering the scrapyard.

“Huh?” surprised by the new voice, the woman let go of the man, him taking advantage of the opportunity to run away in a dark corner of the scrapyard to continue munching on the wires. The woman breathed in deeply “… Well, not so much now.”

“Oh… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“No no, it’s alright.” The woman sighed. “It’s just that these goats eat all the wires in these computers and leave me nothing to work with.”

“Oh, you’re trying to repair them?” Jesse pointed his flashlight at the mounts of computer parts strewn around the place.

“Weeeeell, not really.” The woman admitted. “I mean, I work on the third floor.” Jesse looked at her blankly. “The IT and security floor.” She explained. “I do fix stuff people bring for me, like computers, phones, whatever broken electrical thing, you know what I mean. But right now I’m just looking for parts to make a gaming PC.”

Jesse couldn’t help but laugh at the reasoning. The woman crossed her arms, but only looked at Jesse with a small smirk.

“Hey, laugh all you want, but my franken-computer works swimmingly. Maybe I’ll show it to you – Actually, now that you say it, you new here? I don’t think I saw your face here before and you sure as hell don’t look like you’ve seen what this company can throw at ya.”

“Ah, no, I’m new, this is my first day here.” Jesse extended a hand towards Petra. “I’m Jesse Fadden, I work on the fifth floor.”

“Damn, what are you doing here, man?” she shook his head, with a bit more force than Jesse expected. “No offence, but people from the fifth don’t usually come down to the Hive. Oh, and I’m Petra Johnson, by the way. Like I said, I work on the third floor.”

“None taken. Heh, would you believe me when I say that I have a task to do here?”

“Knowing this company, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.” She nodded with a shrug. “You need any help, dude?”

“Actually, now that you say it. I’m looking for a woman, dark skin, prim and proper, hair arranged into a bun?” Petra opened her mouth for a moment, before closing it again and tapping her lips as she thought about it.

“Ah! I know! I saw a woman like that around here! Uh, let me think where…. Ah, go back from where you came and go on forwards, I saw her working at a printer. She might still be there.”

“Great! Thanks, Petra!” Jesse was ready to leave when he remembered something. “Uh, you need any help with that?” he pointed at the man in the corner.

“Oh, the goat. Thanks, Jesse, but I think I can deal with it. If you can somehow make it go back to the Marketing Department, good, but right now I can deal with it myself.” Petra pulled her sleeves up, menacingly walking towards the goat and practically pouncing on it.

As morbidly curious Jesse was of seeing how Petra was about to fight a man for a computer, he still had to deal with Magnus’ task. Which was to find a friend.

Which he could ask Petra too.

But seeing how they just met, how she was currently fighting someone and how he couldn’t let all the time he spent searching for Olivia go to waste, he decided to leave asking Petra to be his friend for another while. And hey, who knows, maybe Magnus would give him double points for making two friends – from two different floors!

Man, he should stop thinking of gathering friends as if he was gathering Pokémon.

\----

Following Petra’s directions, it took Jesse no time at all to find out where Olivia was.

And Petra was not kidding when she said that Olivia had to work with a printer. The table next to the printer was full of stacks and stacks of papers, with a new one being added by Olivia.

“Alright,” she murmured. “With this the first ten thousand copies have been finished. If I remember right, I can take a 10-minute break before returning to work. But seeing how I need to print thirty thousand copies by 3 pm and seeing how I need to gather the Marketing Department…. Ugh, I don’t have enough time!”

“Olivia? You okay there?”

“Ah! Who – Oh, Jesse, it’s you.” Olivia chuckled weakly, hand on her chest. “You startled me, not gonna lie.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry about that.” He said with an embarrassed chuckle. “Uh, so, yeah, what’s up? I see that…” Jesse looked at the stacks of papers. “… you have quite the work.”

“Oh, you have no idea, Jesse. And this is just the main job, I still need to find and bring back the Marketing Department.” Olivia was ready to say more looked at Jesse for a second and slammed her mouth shut. “Ah, Jesse, sorry for complaining! You probably came here for some small talk and I’m here just complaining about work. How are you Jesse, by the way? I don’t think we talked since we met in the lobby?”

“Ah, well, I’m fine, if I can say it like that… And don’t worry about the work, I have some… hard tasks myself.”

“Oh, yeah? What floor are you on, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Oh, I’m on the fifth floor.”

“Jesse, that’s great! See? I told you that the company has great things in store for you.”

_ Oh, you have no idea what the company has in store for me _ , thought Jesse, while on the surface he simply chuckled. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“So, what are you exactly doing on the fourth floor, anyways? You did mention a task, maybe there’s some way I could help you?”

“Actually, yeah! This is a task I could really use your help with.” Jesse said, feeling how something would finally go his way. “Well, you see, I had this motivational counselor assign me a task and – “ A red bulb light up atop of a cubicle wall near where he and Olivia were standing, Jesse mentally going into a tirade of curses. Olivia’s panicked expression told him more than he needed to know, right now she couldn’t help him.

“Oh, Jesse, I’m so sorry, but I fear I can’t help you right now with you task, my break is over and I need to print thirty thousand more copies by 2 pm. Ugh, and I need to gather the Marketing Department too.”

“Wait, maybe I can help? I mean, I meet a few of the Marketing Department members, maybe I can bring them back for you?” Jesse had a sneaking suspicion that the “goats” he saw around the floor were the ones he had to look for.

“You could?” Olivia looked at Jesse with a wide-eyed expression. “Actually, no, Jesse, you can’t. I mean, it’s my job. I don’t feel like it would be right of me to ask for the help of someone higher in the company’s hierarchy. I mean, you have your task too, I can’t stop you from doing your task.”

Company’s hierarchy? That gave Jesse an idea.

“Wait, don’t think that by being on a higher floor wouldn’t be a pleasure to help. After all, in a company like this, we should foster more inter-floor work relationships. And, uh, this way productivity and work ethics would increase.” Jesse was sure he used some wrong words in his speech, but Olivia seemed to think the words over.

“Yeah, you’re right, that would be good for the company.” Olivia looked at the papers and then at Jesse. “Uh, so, Jesse, if you go west, past the Human Resources door, there is the Marketing Department. They are a bit… eccentric, standing on all fours when working.” Yup, the “goats”. “Four of them escaped when work was too much for them. And, uh, they only respond to slogans.”

“Slogans?” Jesse looked at Olivia as if she grew a second head.

“Yup, slogans. Like, I dunno, uh… Here’s one I saw on a holiday flyer around “When you like your work, every day is a holiday”. See what I mean?”

“I… guess so?” Jesse shrugged. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Oh, thank you, Jesse, you’re a great friend!”

“Ah, it’s no problem, I’m more than happy to help.” He said with a small smile.

Well, as far as Colonel Magnus Dumond is considered, his task might as well be done. But first, the task at hand, finding the four Marketing Department goats. He would be a bad friend if he went back on his word, especially in a company like this.


	15. Bringing the Herd back together

So, Jesse thought as he left Olivia to continue her work with no distractions, he had to find four of the Marketing Department workers. From Olivia’s description, “on all fours”, Jesse knew that he already met two of these workers. One in that cubicle, surrounded by holiday flyers.

And one in Petra’s scrapyard.

And Jesse knew which one was closer.

\---

Jesse had to admit, it was funny to see Petra fight the worker.

“How many times do I need to tell you! No! The wires aren’t for you too eat!” she screamed at the man, her foot on his face, pushing him away, while keeping the computer case as far away as possible. “Woah, woah, woooah!” and crash! Petra lost her footing and fell to the floor with a painful thud.

The worker merrily ignored her groans of pain, and went around her to reach the case, starting to munch happily on some wires.

“God dammit…” she murmured, rubbing the flexing her back, groaning as her joint popped.

“You alright there, Petra?” for a moment, Petra turned to him with a startled expression, one that softened when she saw who called her.

“Oh, hi, Jesse....” Petra threw a look at the man eating the wires. “I’m fine, I just bruised my pride.” Petra raised herself up, hissing for a moment. “And my ass, but that’ll pass.” Now she turned to Jesse. “So, anyways, what’s up? Did you find your friend?”

“Yeah, I did! She just, uh, needed some help with the…” Jesse pointed at the guy. “Marketing Department worker… guys… goats?”

“Uh huh… And what’s up with them?”

“I need to gather them.”

“Oh, well, I’d wish you good luck then, these guys really don’t want to get caught. They’re slippery, like… snakes for example.”

“Well, I don’t need to catch them, exactly. I need them to follow me.” Jesse slowly approached the worker. “And I have just the idea how to do it.”

Feeling Jesse’s presence approaching, the worker decided to face him and growl menacingly, holding the computer case close to his chest. Remembering the incident near the elevator tower, Jesse decided he approached more than enough.

“Hey there, buddy, uh…” Slogans, slogans, slogans. Ugh, he couldn’t think of one. What does this worker like to do? Eat wires for example – Wait, eating? Didn’t some workers speak of eating earlier? “Hey, I have a great idea for you: Make your diet your best medicine! How does that sound?”

Much to Petra’s surprise, the goat tilted its head and looked at Jesse with a curious expression.

“Yeah, that’s right, and by following me back to work, you can, uh, continue having more ideas like that...” he said, with an awkward smile. “Yeah…” He finished even more awkwardly.

But his fears turned out to be unfounded, as for every step he made back, the man made a step forward.

“Gotta say, you know how to lead Jesse.” Petra said, with a small chuckle. “And thanks for getting the goat out of my hair, I owe you.” Petra patted Jesse on the back, before realizing something. “Actually, I know what to give you.” She started searching through her pants’ pocket, getting out a screwdriver. “Yeah, I know what you’re gonna say, “Why would I need this?”, but trust me, you never know when you’re gonna need to unscrew something.”

“Oh, well, thanks.” He said, putting it in one of his jacket pockets. “I hope I can use it well.”

“I know you will.” Petra looked at the computer remains. “Well, back to work then. Maybe if I’m lucky I can find something for Harper’s project too.” She mumbled, just loud enough for Jesse to pick up too. He wanted to ask what exactly she was looking for, but it was too late, she began scrounging through the mounds of computer parts.

Well, Jesse didn’t want to bother her from work, so he shrugged and left for the exit.

Only for Petra to call back for him

“Oh, and Jesse, I won’t stay much here.” She said, without even looking back at him, still searching through the mounds of computer scrap. “I’ll be on third floor, feel free to visit if you need something or if you need to talk.”

“Sure!” He called back, with a nod, and left to find the other workers.

\---

The other worker he knew of was the woman in the half-wall cubicle, surrounded by holiday flyers and brochures.

Jesse found her in the same place, in the same spot, wishfully staring the brochures around her.

He couldn’t blame her, to be honest, she was most likely just as stuck in this building, in this company, as he was. And knowing the madness and the impossible weird things that have been going around him, it was very probable that he signed his very own soul to this company.

He was pretty sure there was a joke about soul stealing corporations, but at this very moment Jesse wasn’t sure if to laugh bitterly or to worry.

However, that is an idea for another day, now Jesse had to gather this worker.

Jumping over the half wall, only then realizing how sturdy it was, the worker didn’t give him any mind, continuing to look sadly at the flyers showing pristine tropical beaches and mountain cabins covered in snow.

Just looking over at them, Jesse could feel a pang of sadness hitting his heart. He and his parents haven’t gone on a holiday ever since he was little, work became too much, time became too little, Reuben had to be taken care of, they didn’t have any time or money to take a vacation.

Maybe…

Maybe if he gets out…

Maybe he’ll take all of them on a vacation. His contract was pretty generous, was it not?

The woman softly sniffed.

Jesse went on one knee next to her.

Now he had an idea. Well, it was Olivia’s originally, so all credit goes to her. As much as he didn’t want to do it, he had to bring her back to work.

“Hey, buddy.” He said to the woman. “I know the life of corporate work is unbearable, but you’ve gotta believe me, when you like your work, every day is a holiday.” How could anyone enjoy working here, he had no idea, but his words seemed to interest the woman. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure you enjoy working in the Marketing Department, yeah?” Now the woman’s attention was all on him. “Come with me, it’s still the work hours.”

And with that, the worker started following him, even gracefully jumping over the half wall, over Jesse's hand offering to help to climb over the cubicle.

“Two done, two more to go.” Murmured Jesse, going back to Olivia’s workspace.

\---

On his way towards the Market Department’s workspace, as indicated by Olivia, Jesse stumbled upon another bizarre sight. A woman was surrounded by a barrier of chairs and a few office drones around the barrier.

“Um, what’s up with her?” Jesse asked one of the office drones, one that looked the most conscious.

“She wanted to escape the work hours.” Said the office drone in a monotone tone.

“Ah, I… understand.” Nope, he did not understand why she had to be put in a… corporate “prison”.

“And she doesn’t want to return to the work, she will escape otherwise if we let her out.” He continued to say, not even bothering to follow Jesse as he came closer to the chair barrier.

“I see…” Jesse said, barely following the man’s words. He did hear something about the woman trying to escape, however. Like the worker before her, he couldn’t blame her, he too would like to be free from this company – Wait, free? What did that union flyer say? “Uh, hey, I heard about you trying to leave your company, but, uh, this is not the way. You won’t be able to do it alone. Unite and you will be free…” admintedly, Jesse ended the speech quite weakly, but the woman seemed interested in his words.

Slowly, but carefully, Jesse removed a couple of chairs from the barrier and let the woman out. She looked left and right for a couple of seconds, Jesse watching her with his heart in his throat, the last thing he needed now was for the woman to run away again.

But, thankfully, she decided to follow him.

Good thing he was also close to the workspace too.

“Hey, would look at that”, Jesse heard a voice coming from one of the cubicles around him. “I didn’t know that the company would hire country hicks. But I guess someone does have to herd the goats.” The voice laughed, alongside it more voices joining in for a ear grating cacophony

Jesse stopped for a second, body ready to turn towards the location of the voice, but, no, he had better things to do than that. He was better than that. Jesse breathed in deeply, and continued his walk on forward, leaving the mocking laugh in the back.

\---

Jesse had to say, the Marketing Department had… an interesting workspace. No desks, no chairs, just five laptops on the ground, one older worker sleeping peacefully in a corner and a minifridge with a couple of magnets and some pieces of paper with something written on them.

The three workers left his side to return to their laptops. One of them then went over to the sleeping man and softly hit him in the ribs, startling him from sleep. Somehow, this was the word for “work time”, seeing how the man mumbled something and tiredly returned to his laptop.

Alright then, Jesse had to find only one more, worker. But where? As far as he knew, he visited most of the locations in this part of the floor, he had no clue how to get through that poisonous mist in the south part of the floor and the north-east part of the floor was blocked by the line of workers.

Wait, there might be something there…

That hallway, before being blocked by the workers, split into a north and south. He went south and met Petra. He didn’t actually go north.

Well, he didn’t have many other options, might as well see what was there too.

\---

The moment Jesse heard the click, the moment he saw the green light, the eye looking at him blankly, he knew he had no choice. He saw it, he knew Nell did it, he knew how to do it, but Jesse didn’t know if he would be able to do it or lose an arm in the process.

Feeling how the pencil became a slippery in his hand from all the sweat, Jesse came closer to the mine, in his mind, thousands and thousands of scenarios where he would fail, where he would lose a limb or, even better yet, where he would die.

And yet, his body didn’t stop, he went on forward, unconsciously calculating how many steps it would take until he could stab the mine.

Three steps. The eye was green.

Two steps. The eye was green.

One step. The eye was red.

Jesse stopped.

Jesse, faster than he expected himself to be, lounged at the mine, pencil first.

Jesse heard a pop and his hand was covered in green goo.

He… he did it… Jesse fell on his knees, then rested his back on the cool cubicle that made this short hallway. He… actually did it. Jesse let go of breath he didn’t know he held inside, with his clean hand wiping off the sweat from his brow.

Actually this reminded him of something else.

His goo covered hand.

“Ewww…” he murmured, shaking his hand, throwing whatever goo he had on him away. Well, at the very least it didn’t stain his suit, he thought while stepping over the mine’s remains and wiping his hand on the cubicle wall.

And the short hallway opened up in a larger cubicle, split in two by a long desk.

At one half of the cubicle was the worker he was looking for, moving around in a circle with no care in the world.

In the half he was in was the fresh corpse of a man who’s had his head smashed to a pulp, a large pool of blood having formed around him.

Jesse looked at the corpse, then at the worker in the other half of the cubicle, only then seeing the broken computers in that part.

“This can’t be good…” murmured Jesse slowly coming over to the desk, looking at the destruction, the broken monitors, smashed keyboards and coffee cups, papers ripped to pieces, and a hardcover of a book with a man with a smile red bomb for a head looking back at him. “Swallow your anger and pretend…” Jesse murmured, looking at the man, him calmly walking on all fours on the parquet floor. “Uh… Hey, friend…?”

The man looked at him, looked at him and through him and barred his teeth, positively snaring at him and continuing his walk.

Jesse swallowed the knot forming in his throat and decided that maybe this man needed more than a slogan.

“Um, look, uh, I know you are angry at this company.” Jesse said, attracting the man’s attention. He still stared at him, but at least he didn’t try to threaten him. “But destroying the company wouldn’t help you in the long run. You need to swallow your anger. At least for now. You can find a solution later.”

Again, Jesse didn’t know what he was talking about, but his words seemed to mean something to the man, his empty eyes looking a bit… softer? Yeah, softer.

Jesse made a sign for the man to follow him and they both went back to the workspace.

\---

“Jesse!” Olivia came to him, face full of worry, as he approached her workspace.

“Woah, Olivia, what’s up?”

“One of the goats escaped! He went to the Human Resources.” She said, both hand on her head.

“Wait… I’m not sure I follow…”

“It was the older gentleman. He got tired of the work he had to do and decided to go to the HR to ask for another job.”

“Alright…?”

“Jesse, you don’t know the ladies at the HR. They are the ones that come to you with a promotion, you don’t go to them. Never. Oh, Jesse, I’m very worried for him, but I’m not sure if I can go to HR myself”

“Maybe I can go?” Jesse said with a shrug, looking over to see if he could see the HR door from here, he passed it a few times going to the Marketing Department

“I’m not so sure Jesse. They can be very spiteful. I mean, even if you are from another floor.”

“Oh… I see then.” Jesse took a moment to think. If what Olivia said was true, then the man won’t stay long in the HR. For as worrying the HR seemed to be, something in his heart couldn’t simply let the man just never come out. “Alright, Olivia, wish me luck.” Jesse said with a sigh.

“Wait, you’re going in? You sure?”

“No.” Jesse said honestly. “But I can’t leave that man alone in there either.”

“Oh… Then, good luck there, Jesse. I feel like you’re going to need it.”

“Thanks, Olivia. I mean it.”

And with that, Jesse walked over to the HR door, put his hand on the handle and pulled it down.

  
  



	16. Nothing like Human Resources

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw: Mentions of blood, general horror

Only to find it locked. Jesse tried a few more times, pushing and pulling, trying to see if he was mistaken, but no, the door to the HR was closed. Looking around, Jesse tried to find something that could help him open the door or find another way in.

And he found something. An air vent near the door, just above a document shelf.

Jesse had to admit, the company was starting to get to him, he thought while testing the shelves themselves, finding them more than sturdy to support his weight.

One foot after the other, Jesse found himself getting closer to the air vent and –

“Um, Jesse?” Jesse stopped so suddenly, all that was needed to complete the scene would be if a needle was taken suddenly off the record. “What are you doing?” said Olivia, looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Um… Exercising?” he said with an awkward smile, mentally facepalming himself. “You know how office work is… you always need to fight the damage that sitting in the chair for hours at end does to you… haha.. hah…” Olivia blinked at him.

“Okaaaay, if you say so, Jesse? I’ll… leave you to it, then.”

Jesse facepalmed himself for being an idiot and continued upwards until at the top of the shelf. Well, Jesse didn’t expect anything less when he found the vent cover itself to be screwed tight. Maybe he had a quarter or something on him that he could open the cover with –

The screwdriver! He nearly forgot about it.

Forgoing the opportunity to facepalm himself again to pop up the screwdriver, Jesse opened the cover and went inside the surprising spacious and clean air vents, hoping that he could find a way to the HR from here.

\---

For as awkward was for Jesse to hold the flashlight in his mouth, it really made his travel through the vent much easier. For as cramped, loud and awkward it was in the vents, especially since he had to bring his suitcase along, at least they were big enough so that he won’t get stuck.

And Jesse found his first crossroad in the vents, one that went on forward, and then made a right turn just ahead, and one that went left. Out of curiosity, he went on forward and right, finding a pool of blood with no body, and no place to enter or exit otherwise than the way he came from. And there was no blood trail, it was all just a larger, dried out blood pile with a few scattered and blood-soaked papers.

Jesse slowly went back, his blood a few degrees colder and went down the left path, it soon giving away to another vent cover.

This time the screwdriver would have no use, all the screws were twisted on the other side.

In other words, he had to do something else to open it. And Jesse just had the idea.

\---

For as much Jesse worried about the crash of the vent cover hitting the floor and the thud of his feet landing near the cover, nobody seemed to mind, the few people sitting on the chairs, waiting for their meeting not even reacting to the new person coming out of the vents themselves.

“Oh ho ho, what do we have here?” Jesse heard the voice, a whisper soft as velvet. “Come closer, come closer, I can’t wait.” And silence.

For a moment, Jesse couldn’t help but shiver. Whatever that voice was… it didn’t feel right.

A voice in Jesse’s subconscious screamed at him to leave, to run away and never return to the HR again, but he knew he couldn’t do that. However, there was something he had to check out.

A bead of cold sweat appeared on Jesse’s forehead as he tested out the door.

On this side it was unlocked.

Jesse opened the door and went out, closing the door behind him.

Jesse opened the door with no problem, entering HR once again.

There was no latch, no lock mechanism, no key that could lock the door from this side.

Jesse softly closed the door and went on forward, past the workers waiting in the chairs and into the office space proper.

There, a few workers were sitting in front of the desk, speaking about their problems and wishes while the women at the – What the hell?

From neck down, they seemed like women in light blue dresses.

From the neck up, nothing. Nothing but a giant pair of blood red lips in half open smile, their sickly bright green tongue visible inside, and a pair of upper thin, snake like fangs poking through.

Jesse had a bad feeling about these women, but for the moment they didn’t seem to mind him. Yet.

Poking his head from behind the wall corner, just enough that he would be in their... view and … Nothing, they didn’t seem to mind him.

Still, that didn’t make him any less worried that  _ something _ will happen, he was in this company long enough to not take things like this for granted.

Taking in a deep breath, Jesse walked on forward, in full view of the HR Ladies, fully prepared for something to happen.

“I’m sorry, dearie.” One of the ladies, the one at his right, said with a soft, velvety voice. “But you can’t go on forward without appointment.” And then out of the woman came one of the most disgusting and horrifying sounds in Jesse’s life, as if someone tried to cough out that phlegm that was stuck at the back of their throat.

A small green ball of some… viscous liquid came and Jesse from the Lady’s mouth, Jesse barely avoided it, it hitting the wall, splattering all around and producing a sizzling sound, as if it was eating into the plaster and concrete underneath.

It took until he heard the sound again for Jesse to realize that now he was a sitting duck for the Ladies if he didn’t  _ move _ .

And he ran, the second ball hitting the wall behind Jesse.

And this was one Lady, he had to go through two more until he could reach the other side of the room.

Thankfully, he found a temporary sanctuary behind a water cooler, the first Lady stopping her attack.

Looking at his left, he saw why. He ran far away enough that the wall of cubicle she was stationed would stop any spit attacks.

Looking at his right – Jesse barely dodged another spit ball, this one hitting the wall and splattering, just like the others, and hitting Jesse’s hand.

A great, white hot pain shot up through Jesse’s entire body, as if he was electrocuted with thousand and thousand of volts. The only thing on his mind was to get away from the pain, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t get away, not without possibly being hit by such other balls of green spit.

Wait, the water cooler, he could wash await – the pain!

Jesse opened the faucet and let the cold water run over the acidic spit on his hand, soon the burning hot pain leaving way for the cool sensation of water. Jesse didn’t even care that his sleeves and knees were getting wet, as long as the pain went away.

Feeling much better, Jesse closed the faucet and looked at the back of his hand, grimacing.

The acid has eaten quite deep, but not enough to damage the veins or the tendons, just a red, raw hole where blood was starting to pool in. And he had no bandage or handkerchief or anything in his suitcase to stop the bleeding with. Well, anything other than his hand, but he didn’t know how to hold the flashlight and the suitcase if he had one hand occupied.

But, he thought, wanting to look back at the HR Lady, right now could care less for that, as long as he got out of here.

The rooms here were light up enough so he wouldn’t need the flashlight for the moment, so in the suit pocket it went and the suitcase was held by the wounded hand, as much as it ached to hold it and to held the healthy hand over it.

But if it meant that he were to live another day, he would endure the pain.

He didn’t hear anything from any of the Ladies. In no space or form was the coast clear, but at least now he had the chance to run to the other side.

A chance he took with no hesitation.

Jesse didn’t look back, didn’t look at his side, he only looked straight ahead, ignoring the countless spit balls that were shot behind him, splattering the walls, eating at the plaster and concrete just as easy as they were at eating flesh.

Then, thought either bad luck or someone deciding to have a bit of fun with him, Jesse tripped over his own foot, barreling down in front of the last HR Lady, landing just in ahead on the other side of the office, Jesse now entering a new hallway.

And yet, it was not done, his upper body was in the hallways, his feet here still in the office, in full view of the Ladies. As the sound of spitting came closer and closer to its end, Jesse went on his knees and elbows and walked into the hallway, the ball of spit hitting the floor behind him not even a moment later.

But it didn’t end there, just a few meters away was another reception desk, maned by another Lady, this one moving around near a reception desk, not looking for something in particular, but also not aimlessly walking around, more like moving in a large circle.

Now he had an idea, if he could sneak behind her, and maybe even hide underneath the table at the end of the hallway, maybe he could get past her without getting spit on.

Step by step, on his toes, hunched over near the wall, close enough to change direction if needed, but far away that she won’t sense him, Jesse walked near the desk, behind the woman. The moment she turned away to walk from the desk, opposite from where Jesse was standing, Jesse mustered enough speed to silently run behind the Lady and hid underneath the table.

However, he miscalculated a bit what part of him would hit the floor and how loud would he hit it. The HR Lady turned back on her heel in Jesse’s direction too see where that thud came from. She found nothing. She looked left, then right, still nothing. So, in the end, she simply shrugged and went on her way.

Jesse, on the other hand, was trying his hardest to not hyperventilate, the guilty suitcase held tight in his arms, hands over his mouth, blood from his right-hand spilling through the fingers of his left hand. Feeling that the danger had passed, Jesse, slowly, but surely, crawled from underneath the table and went on behind the desk. And from there on he went into the back of the HR, into another hallway.

There, Jesse took a moment to slide down and rest on one of the walls of the hallway. Jesse looked at the back of his right hand and the palm of the left hand. The blood was still flowing, now staining his shirt and jacket sleeve, his left hand was colored in a red that seemed to turn a dark maroon.

Jesse couldn’t help but sigh at the situation.

The price of blood paid for being in SintraCorp.

\---

Hissing everything he moved his left hand made sudden movements, Jesse went on forward through the dark hallway, suitcase held awkwardly in his right hand as if it was a shield, while the flashlight was secured in his sleeve, the front end resting on the suitcase.

The first thing he saw was something that made him forget about the pain.

It was a wall filled from top to bottom with what seemed like resumes.

And in front of that wall was a man in his underwear worrying about a piece of paper, most likely a resume if the wall was of any indication, in his hands.

“Hey, you, do you know anything about resumes?” the man fluttered the resume in his face, stopping him from his walk on forward.

“Uh… pardon me, I’m sorry?”

“I need a slogan for my resume. Do you know anything about resumes?”

“Uh, not really, no…”

“Then you can’t help me.” And with that, the man went back on to worry about his resume, leaving Jesse more confused that worried.

And with that out of the way, Jesse continued on forward, one more corner passed and just a few more steps until – There he was! Jesse felt like the man saw him, then and there decided to scuttle away somewhere to the right.

Jesse ran on forwards, hoping to catch it early, only to stop dead in his tracks, mouth agape, pain nearly forgotten and nearly dropping his suitcase and flashing light when he saw what was awaiting him.

The hallway gave away to a medium sized room, chairs on each side of the room with a few workers waiting, at the end of the room a giant mouth on the wall, same as the HR Ladies, blood red lips, a green tongue, thin snake like fags, underneath it a pool of blood, fresh, while next to it, four workers, two on each side, in their underwear, worshipped it, bowing and singing it praises.

“Ah, look who has decided to join us.” She chuckled in that same soft, velvet like whisper, with a warmth that chilled Jesse down to the smallest of cells. “Come closer, I always wanted to meet you. What do you say my dearie, would like a kiss?” Jesse looked to his right, hoping to maybe see the man, to get him and to get out of here. “Aww, what’s the matter? Don’t you want a kiss? Isn’t this why you came here?” the mouth said, chuckling softly.

Jesse didn’t say anything, he ignored the mouth and went to the right side of the room, finding a small hallway connecting it to another storeroom. Whatever that… mouth is, he would rather stay as far as possible from it.

“Oh, what’s the matter?” he heard the mouth speak. “Are you shy, my dear? Or maybe just afraid? Oh, what a waste then, to see what this company would only hire cowards for the job of a Hunter.”

Jesse froze on the spot.

The Mouth.

It knew.

Jesse’s feet took him to the Mouth, closer than he would have wanted, but this…

“H-How?” Jesse managed to say. The Mouth only chuckled.

“Oh, I’m just a friend who wants to help.”

“H-How would you be able to help?” Jesse swallowed a knot in his throat. One way or another, he would regret this question.

“Oh, I have a cluuue. A clue about Her. A clue towards her identity. Here, have a look. You can have it, if you would be so nice to come closer, dear.” The mouth said, opening wide and letting her long, green snake like tongue free, a photo currently residing on said tongue.

Jesse knew better however than to just go after the photo, seeing the blood on the floor and how “insistent” it was on him coming closer to it.

Jesse made a few steps backwards, hitting of the employees sitting on the chairs.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Jesse said to the employee, a man in what seemed to be his thirties.

“I am missing something. My resume is perfect, “No more slogans, just be yourself” is a perfect slogan. But the Mouth doesn’t want to taste me, why?”

“Y-You want to be tasted by that thing?” Jesse couldn’t bother to hide his surprise this time.

“Isn’t it obvious?” the voice came from another man, two chairs away from Jesse. “Who wouldn’t want to be tasted? To be desired, for the company to recognize your efforts, to finally get that promotion you always wanted and felt you deserved. But the Mouth doesn’t love us equally, some She savors, some She spits on, but She didn’t spit on me. Not even once.”

“Uhhh…?”

“But I can’t give up now. There is a way to trick Her. There is a symbol that She can’t resist.”

“A symbol?”

“Yes, a magical symbol, representing what she loves the most, a symbol of man.”

“Aha, thank you for the… lesson.” Jesse said, stepping away from the man. Not out of fear, but to digest those words.

Jesse looked at the Mouth, at the people worshiping Her and at the pool of blood underneath.

A symbol of man, huh?

Jesse went into the second room, finding the man underneath a table, slightly shivering.

“Hey, there, friend...” At his words, the man hid even deeper in what little space he had underneath the table. Jesse sighed, then looked at the papers on the table, more out of curiosity than to try to find something useful. Just some tables and numbers, some documents with corporate lingo and – An excerpt from a magazine? It spoke about rumors regarding the death of the SintraCorps founders’ daughter who has died mysteriously. “… As of this point, we haven’t been able to get a hold of the autopsy report…” he murmured, reading over the article. Are autopsy reports public? Jesse thought so.

But now he had something else to do.

Jesse placed his suitcase on the table, then flashlight next to it, then his elbows.

A symbol of man…

What could that mean?

Well, it was most likely something representing a man, maybe a silhouette? He could make one, he just needed some paper, which he had in great supply seeing the storeroom he was in, and something to cut it in the shape of a man. He might have a box cutter or a pair of scissors in his suitcase, his mom made his suitcase, so who knew what she thought was needed for an office job.

Slowly, but surely, Jesse opened his suitcase and looked around.

Some papers… including some with the SintraCorp logo... When did he get these? Jesse knew of the one he used back when he started work this morning and none more.

A couple of pencils. A calculator. A couple of pens. Ah, a pair of office scissors.

But when Jesse reached for the scissors, he discovered something else in his suitcase.

It was a piece of paper cut to resemble the silhouette of a man.

Carefully to not stain it, Jesse picked it up and placed it on the table. This. How did this get into his suitcase? At no point did he made one of this and he was sure that his mom and dad won’t do something like this and he never saw Reuben cutting paper in the shape of people. Someone must’ve placed it here at some point. But who and when…?

Lost in thoughts, Jesse didn’t realize he held his hands over the paper shape until he saw the drop of blood falls from above, straight on the shapes’ chest.

Much to his surprise, the paper absorbed the blood entirely, leaving no stain. Jesse took his left hand from over his right, picking up the piece of paper.

He might have been imagining things, but for a second, on the paper appeared a symbol, like two angles with intersecting tips and a rhombus in the middle, with a small black circle in the middle of the rhombus, making it look like a very angular eye.

It disappeared just as quickly as it appeared, leaving Jesse with more questions than answers.

Well, at the very least he had a symbol to trick the Mouth with.

But now, who to use as bait?

The goat under the table murmured something.

Jesse considered it, but he decided against it, the man was scared enough as it is.

Wait, the man in the main room. Jesse could ask him, since he… wanted it…

Shivering at the idea, Jesse left the storeroom and went back to the main room.

“Hey, you said that you might need to  _ trick _ the mouth with a symbol.” He said to the man, him eating his words up. “I might have just what you need.” And with that, he showed the man the paper shape.

The man started to cry.

“No, I don’t have a resume made!” he said through the sobs.

“Uh, pardon me?”

“Even with the symbol of man, I can’t come close to Her. I need a resume made to be worthy of even coming to be judged.” Jesse nodded, asking himself if it would be worthy of his time to ask why he, Jesse, was allowed to come close as it was, but he then decided that it would be best to stay silent.

So, who else could he trick? Someone that had a resume and would be okay with being eaten by a giant mouth on a wall.

Wait a second, there was someone… As much as he hated the idea and the mental image, what other choice did he have?

And there he found the man, still worrying over his resume.

“…Extra responsibilities, same salary? Would that work? Ugh, I don’t know!” he said, smashing his face in the resume.

“Um, hello?” the man turned back to Jesse, his vision narrowing. “Um, I might have something that will help you the… Mouth?” Jesse pulled out the human shaped paper piece. “I heard that such a symbol would… help…”

The man looked at the piece of paper with a wide-eyed expression, before snatching it out Jesse’s hand and running off to the main chamber.

“Hey, wait a second!” Jesse called after the man, running as quickly as he could on his tail.

By the time Jesse caught up to him, the man was already in front of the mouth, arms wide open, in one hand the resume, in the other the paper symbol. The Mouth’s tongues floated ahead of the man, only to suddenly snatch him up whole, the photo flying up and landing in front of Jesse’s feet.

Jesse didn’t waste a second in picking up the photo and running to the storeroom where his flashlight and suitcase were left in. He had a feeling that after this trick he had limited time to get the worker and leave.

Jesse heard a spitting sound coming from the main room, confirming his fears.

“You think you are smart, Hunter?” the mouth said, while Jesse looked right and left for a possible exit. “Girls! Come here, please!” And Jesse found a weird location for furniture. A filing cabinet was in front of a table, and behind the table, the darkness seemed deeper than normal.

“Hey, buddy!” Jesse called out for the man, him turning his head to see who was speaking to him. “I know how it feels like'' Jesse said, pushing the filing cabinet away, gasping in pain as it reopened his wound, fresh blood trickling down the back of his hand, “to be tired of work, to want something else, all these slogans, they mean nothing, you just want to be yourself.” The man started to come out from under the table. “But, right now, the HR won’t help you, you need to stand up to your workers, show them you have your own voice in the Department.”

Jesse heard the distinctive sound of high heels hitting the concrete floor, signaling that he had to move now lest he becomes a pile of blood and acid on the floor. With the worker on his tails, Jesse picked up his flashlight and suitcase and crawled underneath the table into the dark crawlspace, just in time for the haunting chuckles of the HR Ladies to fill up the storeroom, finding it empty.

Jesse found himself in a familiar place, it was between the last cubicle of the HR Ladies, back near the entrance, and the reception desk, a small space hidden by darkness and his earlier hurry to get past the HR Lady at the reception desk.

And they were all empty.

Jesse let out a sigh of relief and raised himself back on his feet, looking back to see if he was still followed by the worker. Losing a bit of tension in his shoulders, seeing that he wasn’t alone, Jesse walked towards the exit at a brisk pace, wanting nothing more than to leave this place and to never return.

And before he knew it, Jesse and the worker were outside the HR, the endless clickety-clacking of the keyboards being a welcome sight.

\---

“Jesse! What happened to your hands?!” Olivia almost screamed, looking at the bloody state of Jesse’s hands. Jesse himself was startled by that statement and looked down at his hand, eyes opening in surprise as if he saw their state for the first time.

“I… Well… Now that you say it…” Jesse looked at his palms, then at the back, now seeing the hole and the thick blood that was slowly starting to stop flowing. “Would you believe me if I said that HR was worse than what you mentioned it to be?” Olivia nodded, looking a bit queasy at the blood.

“Jesse, are you alright?” Olivia pointed at his hands. “I have a handkerchief that might help stop the bleeding…” she said, searching through her pockets.

“Thanks, but I - “ Jesse was interrupted by a door opening and a familiar voice coming through.

“Don’t let him get away.” If, before, the Mouth spoke with a soft, velvety voice, and somewhat warmth to it, now it was cold as ice.

“Jesse, come with me!” Olivia said, pulling Jesse by the sleeve to drag him under the table, just in time for one of the HR Ladies to pass in front of them, looking left and right before moving forward. “Jesse, what happened? They don’t come out of the HR unless it’s their break time.”

“Olivia, you have to trust me here, but it’s a long story, one that you might not believe.” Jesse looked at the Lady, at the way it went through the cubicle hallway. “And it’s a story I don’t have time right now to explain.”

“Jesse…” Olivia looked at Jesse, many emotions running through her mind. “I trust you.” She finally said.

“Thank you. I’ll explain everything when I can.” Jesse poked his head out from under the table, finding the coast clear. “All the workers in the Marketing Department are back in their spots. Wish me luck.” He said, getting back on his feet

“Good luck, Jesse!” Olivia called back to him, just as he began his walk towards the elevator doors.

He could hear their high heels hitting the floor, they were looking for him all over the floor and they wouldn’t rest until he was found or dead. For this very reason he turned off his flashlight, letting his memory of the floor layout and his slowly accommodating sight guide him back.

Jesse glued his back to the wall when one of the Ladies came from behind a corner, a few centimeters away from his face. For as much as it made his lungs burn, Jesse held his breath, the Lady looking left and right, the coming walking north, passing Jesse by a centimeter and going on forward.

Waiting a few more minutes, Jesse let go of his breath and continued on to the elevator door, thankfully finding no more Ladies in his way.

The wait for the elevator to come from the first floor to the fourth was more than excruciating, each floor light taking its sweet time to light up.

By the time it reached the third floor, Jesse heard the sound of high heels coming forth from ahead of him, from behind the elevator box.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!” murmured Jesse, as the light from the third floor turned off and the sound came closer.

And when the Ding hit the fourth floor, many things happened at once.

The door opened and Jesse jumped through.

The HR Lady saw him and spit at him.

Jesse entered the elevator box at the last moment, the green ball of spit missing him by a millimeter. With no intention to waste this opportunity, Jesse pressed a random button, the doors closing just as the HR Lady came in front of the elevator.

Jesse sighed a deep tired sigh and rested his head on the cool metal walls of the elevator box. He did it, he was out of the Hive. He did his job, both his jobs actually, he got a friend and got a clue towards the identity of the Witch.


	17. A Break From Work

Jesse came out of the elevator, finally releasing that breath he’s been holding in for such a long time. Now he can take it a bit easier, all that he had to do now was to take this to Sintra and see what his next task would be.

Getting out of the elevator, Jesse couldn’t help but sigh. Another task.

Could he possibly do it?

Actually kill Her?

Actually end the curse?

These were the thoughts Jesse had on his mind while he exited the elevator and slowly but surely went towards his office, passing Nell by. Feeling how someone was passing by her desk, her eyes split away from the video on the phone, seeing Jesse’s blue suit.

“Heeeey, Jesse dude!” Nell called out to him, taking her eyes off her phone, it held in a sideways position. “Where have you been? Haven’t seen you since – ”Nell dropped her phone,mouth agape, her hand looking down on Jesse’s hand, more exactly, their bloodid state. “Jesse,” Nell's voice was calm, but Jesse could feel a small shudder going through it, “what happened to you?” 

“Problems with HR.” Jesse didn’t know if it was from the exhaustion or something else, but he said that with an utter calmness, waving with his wounded hand, then hissing when it brought a flash of pain. “It looks worse than it actually is, believe me.” He said, while grimacing a bit. The adrenaline from running from the HR Ladies must’ve washed away by now, and Nell saw that it was hurting him more than he wanted others to see.

“Jesse…” She sighed, searching a bit under the reception desk, pulling out a small green box with a cross on it. “Come with me. You can just go on with an open wound, especially not in this company.” Nell grabbed Jesse by the sleeve and pulled him close. “She loves blood.” Nell whispered in Jesse’s ear, nodding as a response to his wide eye expression.

\---

It didn’t take Jesse long to wash his hands, the now dried blood breaking down, staining the water maroon as it went down the drain. Next, nell made him sit next to the sinks, on the black wood that held them, and started disinfecting his wound before blood could start flowing again. Some oxygenated water here and there on the wound, some rubbing alcohol around the wound and now the bandages.

Jesse couldn’t help but be surprised. Especially since how serious Nell was and how calculated her moves where.

“How did you learn this?” he blurted out. Nell looked at him startled, then she thinned her lips and looked back at the wound, now opening the bandage.

“Well, uh, from experience, mostly. Had to learn while working around here.” she murmured, not looking up at Jesse “So, uh, dude, how did you get such a nasty burn?” Nell changed the subject, putting the bandage over the now cleaned wound.

“Like I said, I was in HR.” Jesse began, although he took a short break to hiss at the pressure put upon the wound. Not that it stopped Nell. “And one of the HR Ladies spit on me.” Nell looked at him with worry. “Well, not a direct hit, but a splatter was more than enough to well…” Jesse pointed with his good hand and the now tightly bandaged wounded hand. “You can see for yourself.”

“What were you doing in the HR anyways?” Nell asked, raising herself to stand on the bathroom sink next to Jesse. “Y’know, as the fifth floor we do outrank them, and as far as I know, your task didn’t have any connection to the HR.” Nell looked at him with a weird expression.

“Honestly, I went in there to help a friend. She had to gather workers from the Marketing Department and one of them ran into the HR.” This response seemed to surprise Nell.

“Wait, really? I thought you might have gone there to search for clues or something like that.” For a split second, Jesse widened his eyes.

She knew.

Looking back, however, it was obvious.

Jesse trusted Nell, that was true.

But he also wanted her to be honest with him.

“Nell, what do you mean, clues for what?” Jesse had to admit, while on the outside he looked at Nell with innocent confusion, on the inside he was beating himself up, he should have said something less shocking, seeing Nell’s reaction.

Nell gaped as a fish, mentally beating herself for such a mistake.

“Jesse, I… Look, what I mean is… Well…”

“Nell, I trust you.” Jesse said, much to Nell’s surprise.

“Oh... Jesse… dude…” Nell looked away for a moment, rubbing her arm. “Look, sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. But.... You’re not the first Hunter in this company. And I knew a lot of Hunter in my years over here. Most of us got used to recognizing them. And Jesse, few were as obvious as you.” She said with a bitter chuckle.

Jesse couldn’t hold it against her. He remembered what the electrical on the seventh floor said to him, nobody comes to the seventh floor anymore. With one exception…

“The moment I came to the seventh floor, right?”

“Yup. Nobody goes there anymore.”

“How comes I saw you there, then?” Jesse said with a small, playful smile. This time, Nell’s chuckles had more warmth in them.

“You got me there, not gonna lie, dude.” She shrugged. “I do like movies. And for some reason the video room has a lot of old tapes. Most of them are actually pretty good. We really do need to have a movie night if – ” Nell froze, realizing what she was about to say.

Jesse would lie if he didn’t start to feel like that too, the wound on his hand the sign that the company could and most likely would take him out should his luck run out.

“And how did you get there?” he said, trying to change the subject. “I mean…” Now Jesse realized that this subject had a painfully obvious answer.

“Oh, dude, would you believe me when I say that I came through the vents?” she said with a bright smile. “Now, don’t tell anyone, but there are a few shortcuts through the building. In your office, that vent could take me to the seventh floor, or more exactly, the hallway to the three rooms.” Nell looked away from Jesse to the stalls in the bathroom. “And if I remember right, there is one vent that takes you to the eighth floor. Never tried it, but an old… friend of mine told me that...” Nell said, her smile losing a bit of intensity when she mentioned a friend.

Jesse saw that, and put a hand over her shoulder, squeezing it. Nell looked back at Jesse with a small, melancholic smile, putting her hand over his.

“Jesse, dude, could you promise me something?” she said, squeezing his hand in turn. “Please promise you’re gonna live. I lost many friends among the years, both Hunters and normal workers. I know it might seem much, when I saw you coming here bloody, dude, my heart nearly stopped.” Tears started to form in Nell’s eyes. “Oh, who am I kidding.” Nell jumped away from Jesse’s touch as if it burned. “Nobody managed to kill the Witch, not even Xara, Fred and Romeo. How could you?!” She screamed at Jesse. 

A moment of silence passed between them, Nell looking at Jesus with the same amount of shock he was looking at her with.

Oh no, what has she done... 

Nell jumped off the sink, bitter tears starting to burn in her eyes, not even daring to look at Jesse.

“Jesse, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I should go.” She’s done it again, hasn’t she? She’s gotten close to someone. Someone that had no chance of survival. Again. And again. Until she too will die. Why? Why?! And even worse than that…

Her emotions pushed Jesse away...

“Wait!” Jesse caught her hand before she could run away. Nell froze like a deer in the headlights, only to slowly turn back towards him, tears now flowing freely flowing her cheeks.

“Jesse, dude, you’re a Hunter.” She said between hic-ups. “Your days are numbered from the moment you accepted that letter… Dude, I’m so sorry – “Jesse hugged Nell, holding her as tight as he could without accidentally hurting her.

“Nell, I promise. I will do my best to live.” Jesse whispered, feeling how Nell was starting to shake in his arms. “We’ll have that movie night, I promise.” He said, letting Nell sob into his shoulder.

\---

Jesse found himself alone in the Cafeteria. Nell left a few minutes ago, her coffee untouched. He managed to calm her down, to take her mind from his imminent demise, but he knew better, the smile she had shown him was just a tad too forced to be genuine.

Jesse sighed. From what Jesse heard, she worked here for five years, did she not?

He couldn’t blame her, to be honest. Knowing this company, who knows how many co-workers and friends she had lost along the way. Even the Colonel has lost co-workers, if the story he told them was true.

To be honest, Nell’s reaction brough two emotions into Jesse's heart.

Fear. Fear of death more exactly. She was right, he was just another Hunter in the meat grinder, at one point or another his run will run out. And he would have done nothing more than prove Nell right.

But the other one.

The other makes the fear pale in comparison.

Determination. Determination to survive, to bring an end to this curse, to survive. For him. For his mom. For his dad. For little Reuben. And now for Nell.

He was still scared, however, scared of what this company could throw against him or his friends.

Jesse drank his cup of coffee, the bitter taste making him grimace.

Well, back to work then.

However, Jesse thought, while looking over the elevator buttons. He had one more thing to do before sharing the photo with Sintra. He had one more person to check up with.

\---

One thing Jesse was thankful for was that the third floor was that it was light. The lights were dirty and looked as if they needed a necessary change, but at least they didn’t flicker at every two seconds.

Right of the elevator box, the floor became a circular chamber with two white stone pillars in the middle of it. Going right from the pillars, same side as the elevator doors, was a simple door with an eye on it and some writing above it while, above the door itself were three screens, each filled with white static and four cameras stationed to look at the place just before the door.

Jesse squinted his eyes to see whatever was written on the door, hesitant to actually get closer to the door itself.

“Security…” murmured Jesse.

Looking left and right, finding nothing, except the emergency exit, covered in black and white tape.

Jesse then went in the other direction, went by a corner and saw what he could call a veritable computer workshop. Pieces of computers, both external and internal were thrown not only thrown over a long desk, but all over the floor and over a couple of tables and filling almost all metal shelves in the workshop.

And Petra was standing in the middle of it all, at the single space of the big desk that was clean of computer detritus. She seemed to be lost in her work, some kind of red circuit table, tongue poking out at the side of her mouth, in one hand a soldering iron, while in the other a small flashlight.

But, as Jesse came closer, he saw that Petra paid him no mind. On one hand, Jesse saw that she was busy. On the other, Jesse saw two small wires coming up her shirt and up to her ears. Headphones.

However, Petra hissed and pulled the soldering iron away from the circuit table and sighing. That was when she saw Jesse, standing in front of the desk, curious at what she was working at.

“Oh, hey, Jesse.” She said, pulling out her headphones. “Didn’t see you standing here. When did you come up here?”

“Five minutes or so? I was mostly in the other part of the floor, where the Security was.” At the mention of Security, Petra grimaced.

“I hope you didn’t enter, did you?” Petra asked.

“No, why?”

“Few that entered there came out. And few of those that came out lived for much longer.” Jesse couldn’t help but flinch at those news. “Yeah, SintraCorp at its finest.”

“Was it always like this?” asked Jesse, while Petra put the circuit board away.

“For as long as I worked here, yeah, it was always like this.” Petra shrugged. “But a few years ago, when I first started, I worked with another woman, Harper, and she told of times when the company was still a company, not a death house.”

“And what happened to her?”

“Honestly, I dunno, she just left me some instructions for a project and disappeared.” Petra shrugged again. “I did try to look around for her, especially in the places she used to scavenge old stuff, back from when this SintraNet stuff was still called PAMA.”

“PAMA? Never heard of it.”

“Not many did, to be honest. It was all  _ top-secret,” _ Petra said, while making air quotes around the top secret part, “if what Harper told me was right in the first place. She did work on the project, back then, but didn’t share that many details, just that it involved robotics and Ais.”

“That does sound interesting. By the way, what was that circuit board you were working on? I don’t think I saw one of those before.”

“Oh, this?” Petra pointed at the red circuit board. “Oh, um, it’s nothing, just something that needed repairing. That’s all.” She finished with an awkward smile.

Jesse raised an eyebrow at Petra but decided to not press the subject further.

Out of reflex, Jesse scratched at the back of his head with his wounded hand, a sight that Petra caught and was quite surprised at.

“Hey, what happened to your hand? Last time I saw you was on the fourth floor, I hope you didn’t get into a fight with the Dot Matrix.” Petra stood a moment to think. “Although if you did, you wouldn’t be here. Or with a hand missing, if you were lucky.”

“Uh, what’s a Dot Matrix? I was in the HR to help Olivia, one of the HR Ladies spit on me.” Petra grimaced at the mention of the HR Ladies, but still seemed less worried about them than the “Dot Matrix”.

“Nasty to hear, dude. As for the Dot Matrix… Jesse you probably heard about SintraCorp. More exactly, how it was leader in robotics, industry, computers, etc. and etc.” Jesse nodded. “Well, most of the research and testing was done in house, on the sixth floor.”

“This I didn’t know, to be honest.” Petra shrugged at his commentary.

“Most people these days don’t know either. Back in the 90s the R&D stopped… for some reason. Harper told me that some accidents happened there and production was stopped. Anyways, back to what I wanted to say with Dot Matrix: Dot Matrix was supposed to be a top of the line, edge cutting printer, for the 90s of course, but something happened to it during its final development stages. Some say that a worker got his hand stuck in the printer, others say that many workers were used as spare parts in making it.”

“Uhh…” Jesse gulped at the thought.

“Yeah, I don’t blame you there.” Petra nodded, before continuing her story. “Whatever it was, the printer turned into some kind of flesh-slash-mechanical monster that terrorized the company to this day. Last I knew of it, it was on the fourth floor, but I didn’t dare get close to it.” Petra pointed towards Jesse. “And I recommend you don’t either.”

“Honestly, after what I heard and saw in this company, I know better than to get close to weird monsters in here.”

“Heh, good thinking. Keep it up and you might last a lot longer than most people in here.” Petra said with a small, bitter smile. Petra returned to sit at the desk, a thought hitting her before she could sit down. “Oh, Jesse, actually, I might have something that might help you here.” Petra jumped over towards the few shelves in the back, looking through every shelf until she found what she searched for. “Aha!” She said, coming back with a flashlight, one slightly bigger than the one Jesse had at the moment.

“A flashlight? Thank you, but I got one already.”

“I know. This is just a more powerful flashlight, batteries last a bit longer and the light reaches further.” Petra shrugged. “Never hurts to have an upgrade.”

“Oh, cool! Thanks, Petra!”

“No problem, dude. You do seem like a pretty swell dude, I’d rather not have another one like you on my conscience.”

Jesse opened his mouth to ask  _ “Another?” _ , but thought better of it.

A ding of the elevator distracted the two. Petra looked at her watch and groaned.

“Hey, thanks for coming over, Jesse, but I have an appointment now.” Petra lightly shoo-ed him away. “Ugh, he’s late too.” She murmured, as Jesse left to the elevator box, passing the worker, a man with a worryingly green tint to his skin, carrying a computer tower with him.”

Well, this was it then, he checked up with whoever he watched to check and now it was time for work.

Jesse entered the elevator and pressed the button for the fifth floor.

  
  



	18. A Walk in The Park

For the first time since he entered here, Jesse couldn’t help but find the fifth floor surprisingly empty. There was no Nell manning the reception, the office drones were quiet in their endless walk, and no other person from the other offices decided to take a walk through these halls. Not that he’d blame them.

Jesse’s office was just as empty, no sign of Soren or Axel. The absence of Soren didn’t surprise Jesse, the man could be everywhere, doing who knows what. Axel’s absence on the hand, the only time he didn’t see Axel around was this morning, when we just came to SintraCorp. But knowing him, he was most likely on a coffee break.

But Jesse could think about later, he had something else to do.

Jesse inserted his worker’s card in the old computer, letting his consciousness be taken away to SintraNet.

\---

Again, Jesse wasn’t surprised to see Sintra missing from the main room of SintraNet.

“Sintra?” he still called out, hoping that she could hear him. She was around here somewhere, that’s for sure, but where exactly, he had no idea.

However, no answer from the AI.

Jesse, for a second, thought about going back to the swing, hoping to find Sintra there, but his ears caught something else. Jesse couldn’t find the exact words to describe it, something like… a printing press, but… digital? Yeah, something like that.

So, this is where he must go, Jesse thought, following the sound as it got louder and louder, going deeper and deeper into the dark left side of the room, finding soon enough that he had to turn on his flashlight.

And thanks to the light, a new doorway revealed itself, the digital sound coming from deeper within. Slowly but surely, Jesse made his way through the quite dark hallways, entering a brightly lit room.

“Wow…” murmured Jesse taking in view all the pixelated sights.

To say that it was gigantic would be an understatement. Shelves dozen times taller than him, decorated intricately with floral and vine designs, giant potted plants, a few garden beds with palm trees growing and in the middle of it all, a magnificent water fountain, whose water was just as green and fluid as the rest of this library.

And there was Sintra, facing a shelf with a display showing a book being scanned, every word taken in and analyzed.

“Sintra?” Jesse called out, passing the pixel fountain.

Sintra took her eyes off the scanned book and returned to Jesse.

“Oh, Jesse, welcome back. I have been perusing the Hexxenhammer for more possible information that could be considered useful to our cause.” She turned back to the scanning. “Did you know that for Witches to gain they powers they must make a deal with the Devil and drink his blood?”

“Uhhh…” To say that Jesse was unnerved about this new information would be an understatement.

“Fascinating, is it not?” she said, turning back to Jesse.

“Sure? I’d guess…” a awkward silence reigned between the tow, but Sintra certatnly didn’t seem to mind it. “Uh, Sintra, actually, I have something to show you.”

“Yes?”

“Remember that I’ve had to go to the Fourth Floor to find a friend?”

“The motivational task? Yes, I do remember it quite well.” She stated. “I presume you have completed the task? Unfortunately, I can’t help you here. While every member here is connected and can connect to SintraNet, your rank is higher than the one of your motivational speaker, I am programmed to be incapable of receiving orders and tasks from lower ranks, as a safety so your main task of Killing the Witch won’t be overridden. You must speak with him face to face to complete his task.”

“Ah, um, actually, I didn’t come here for the motivational task.” Jesse started rummaging through his suitcase. “Thank you for the explanation, but I came here to show you this.” And Jesse pulled out a photo.

Now that he thought about it, this was the first time Jesse actually saw the photo.

It was a photo of a family, the middle aged mom and dad and their daughter, with a burn mark in the middle of it, next to their daughter – Wait, no, it wasn’t just a random mark. Around the singed sides, there was snow white hair and some kind of dress. That was the most Jesse could make out of, the face of the fourth person was burned out.

“Where did you find this?” Sintra asked, snatching the photo out of his hand and looking at it intensely, for a second looking as if some of her pixels moved.

“In the Human Resources of the Fourth Floor. I’ve had to go there to help a friend, but something else was there. Believe me or not, there was a giant mouth on a wall and it had this photo.” Jesse thinned his lips. “It knew I was a Hunter.”

“It knew?”

“Yeah, it just… knew. I don’t know how or from where, I certainly didn’t tell, but it knew.” Jesse shivered for a second, a feeling of a cold breeze passing on his neck. “To be honest, it felt like I was talking to the Witch herself.”

“I see…” Sintra said, never taking her eyes off the family photo.

“Everything alright there, Sintra?”

“Yes, everything is alright.” She still didn’t take her eyes off the photo. “I am just… thinking about how to use this information.” More silence. “Come with me, Jesse.” She finally said, leaving the scanned book and Jesse behind.

“Uh, yeah, I’m coming.” Jesse said, walking a bit faster after she didn’t stop waiting for him.

Back in the main room, Sintra took her place in front of the three icons.

“First of all, a bit of context regarding the photo you have found.” All three icons disappeared from the wall, being replaced with a larger version of the photo, burned out portion included. “I don’t know how much you know about the history of the Sintra Corporation?”

“Not much.” Jesse admitted. “Just that they are among the best in the country and started back in the 80s.”

“That is true.” Sintra nodded. “This is the Sintra family. João Sintra, founder of SintraCorp, his wife Xiu Yung and second CEO, and their daughter, Rei Sintra.”

“What about the person under the burnt hole, anything known about them?” asked Jesse. “I mean, if they were part of this family photo, they must’ve been close to them, right?”

“Very possible, Jesse.” Admitted Sintra, nodding. “But my databases have no information about the fourth person.” Sintra closed the window showing the photo, exchanging it with a new icon, one showing a – a gravestone? “As the last few leads have been exhausted, our next lead is the graveyard.”

“The what?” A graveyard? Where? Could… could he actually leave the building?

“The graveyard.” Stated Sintra. “Located on the Eighth Floor.” Oh. No, he still won’t be able to leave the company building. “Seeing how this agent of the Witch used this photo as a bait, it might have some importance. Something related to the Sintra family. Jesse, your next task in Killing the Witch is to visit the Sintra Family mausoleum and search it for any possible leads.”

“I… Mausoleum?” Jesse blinked twice. Then he sighed deeply. “Alright then… Anything else?” Sintra looked at Jesse for a moment and tilted her head.

“You have changed, Jesse.” She said, surprising Jesse. “Earlier this morning you would have opposed this task. What made you change your point of view so quickly?”

“I – Wha – Why?” What’s with all these questions? Sintra usually didn’t about anything more than him completing the task.

“I was just curious.”

“I… I… made friends here, friends who have lost friends along the years, I have a family outside waiting for me to come home, people here have been broken by death, I… just… want everything to stop. All the death, all the suffering. I want all of that to stop. I want the Curse to stop.”

“I see…” Sintra said, after a moment of silence, for a split second a few of her pixels glitching out. “Thank you for your opinion, Jesse. I wish you luck in your endeavor.” It might have been him, but did Sintra sound… weird? Almost… emotional.

“Is…” started Jesse. “Is everything okay, Sintra?”

“Yes. Everything is alright. Thank you for asking, Jesse. Oh, and to respond to your earlier question: No, there is nothing else to add. You are free to leave now.”

“Oh, um, alright then…” Jesse said, while walking to the exit, once or twice throwing a look over his shoulder at Sintra, who watched him back. “I’ll be back if I have any new leads…” he received no answer back by the time he pressed the X and entered the doorway back to the real world.

\---

The walk up to the eight floor was quiet and with no distractions, making Jesse only more anxious about what could come next. He knew well enough that there was no safe place in this entire company, and he would rather not try his luck.

More so once the elevator doors opened, letting in the sound of insects chirping.

“So, there is a graveyard here?” murmured Jesse, going around the elevator box on the broken cobblestone path, past the broken light post and benches.

Now that he could explore it better, this was more than just a simple overgrown forest. The benches, the cobblestone paths, the light posts and a broken down swing – just like the one in SintraNet – this was a interior park once, a park that was abandoned and left to go wild by itself

A park for who?

The Sintra family, that would be the most obvious answer, but that doesn’t explain why there is a fully grown forest here…

Ah, there it was.

Jesse saw the wrought iron fence in the distance, behind it many, many gravestones and the mausoleum itself.

And on the way to it, near the broken down path, was an office drone, smoking a cigarette with a blank look on her face. Well, not so blank, since the moment she went past her, she started to mumble something.

“…loves cheese as much as he loves to brew…” he heard, barely, the woman stopping to take another drag of her cigarette. Jesse turned back towards the woman, but she wasn’t looking at him, she was still looking in the same direction he saw when he passed her.

And, finally, Jesse arrived at the black iron gate.

Well, this was the graveyard, just as overgrown as the rest of this floor, vines growing over the aged gravestones, an angel statue who had clearly seen better days, watching over a water fountain filled with stagnant water and the mausoleum who had fallen into disarray, nobody bothered to visit it in decades as if it hasn’t been visited in decades.

And when Jesse tried to open the graveyard gate, it found it closed.

He tried a couple more times, but it was of no use, the gate was locked.

“Damn it…” Jesse said, with a sigh.

Well, now time to find the key – Wait, where did this fog come from?

Jesse took a step back from the gates, watching how the sudden fog got thicker and thicker, until he could barely see the gravestones in the graveyard.

Wait, what was that in there –

Jesse took more steps back from the gate, breath caught in his throat.

Slender, shadowy figures in the fog, behind the gravestones, watching him. They didn’t move, they didn’t screech, they just stood straight and silent, staring at him, dozens of eyes, just staring at him, at his every move.

And then he heard a deep and raspy chuckle from deeper into the forest. There was someone else here.

“…he loves cheese as much as he loves to brew…” Jesse murmured, the woman’s words coming back to him. This fog, now that he took a moment to take it in, it had a smell, it smelled like… cheese and stew?

That was… surprising. Mostly by how mundane this smell is.

Still, something in Jesse’s mind told him that there was something more to this fog and smell than it seemed. Shining his flashlight around, Jesse found a path going from near the graveyard and going deeper into the forest.

Throwing a last look at the graveyard, now finding it empty of shades, Jesse followed the overgrown path into the eight floor forest.

\---

For how overgrown this path was, it still held some beauty from before, a few patches of flowers growing next to the path, fireflies glowing brightly in the dark near and the sound of a stream. Yes, a stream. For as flabbergasted Jesse was, he had to admit, the sound of the water calmed him somewhat.

“Wait, let me tell y’all!” Jesse stopped, hearing a mean shout from behind some boulders. “I know about the Goblin, I knew him from before!” The Goblin? Who was that? “Before seeing the Witch –“ He what?! “– he was just like the others: ambitious, controlling and greedy!”

This Goblin, he saw the Witch? When Jesse felt like there was more to this fog, he didn’t expect something like this. Maybe, maybe he could find more about the graveyard and the Witch here.

And exploring more of the overgrown forest, Jesse found that the sound of moving water wasn’t just background noise, it had a source. A literal river cutting through the earth, starting from somewhere deeper into the forest and continuing down the floor, somewhere where he has no reason to go.

Jesse looked into the river, not seeing its bottom. And the other side was quite far away too, too far for him to jump over. Maybe he could find a few branches long enough and sturdy enough for him to pass over? Or maybe some big enough rocks to carefully step over.

Jesse found a man clothed in nothing but underwear, in a wood box stuck in some rocks, mumbling to himself, but loud enough that Jesse could hear him.

“The Goblin’s magic is strong, nowhere near Hers, but strong nonetheless. Magic brought forth from the consumer-driven society of the common folk, stronger than ever in such capitalistic days…”

Jesse took a moment to stare at the man, him not paying Jesse any mind. Magic? Jesse knew that he shouldn’t be surprised at magic, true magic, being thrown around like that, but still, magic…

And from the looks of it, Jesse finally found a way across, a patch spaced rocks going from one side of the river towards the other. Jesse thinned his lips at the rock, they were uneven and more than a few were wet from the water occasionally splashing over them. And her wore dress shoes.

Hoping that he won’t fall in, Jesse began his slow and steady walk over river stones to reach the other side of the river.

To say that it was an easy journey would be a lie. He had to keep his balance over the wet stones, his foot slipping more times than he would have liked, and only when he walked over them has Jesse found out how unstable they truly were.

But, in the end, for how much he drenched the end of his dress pants, Jessea reached the other river band, looking back to see that now he had to find another way back to the graveyard. Maybe this Goblin knew a way back? Well, he couldn’t know until he found him.

He did not find him, but instead he found his campsite. A sleeping cot made out of leaves, a few hand made shelves holding different liquids and dusts, a few stumps arranged in a circle around a campfire, above which was a pot filled with a stew.

And, more than that, he found a wall with a vent and something written in white spray paint.

_ Cast the paper of the Witch in the fire for your eyes to open _

That was one interesting request, if he heard one, Jesse had to admit. But, as much as he wanted to ask himself how literal versus how metaphoric it was, Jesse did the best thing with the information he had at hand.

Grabbing a piece of paper with SintraCorp’s logo on it, he crumpled it up and threw it into the fire.

The fire turned green.

A raspy voice came like the wind.

“What is my name?” he heard the voice from behind him.

“The Goblin.” He hoped that his voice didn’t shake too much.

“You heard me, but you don’t see me. You know I am around. How comes I can stay hidden?”

“Because of magic.”

“What kind of magic?”

“Magic brought forth from the consumer driven society of the common folk. String magic, especially since the days of capitalism.”

“I changed a lot from my early days, as a member of this company, tell me, how was I back then?”

“Ambitious, obsessive and greedy.”

“And what changed me?”

“Seeing the Witch?” this he didn’t truly know, all that he heard was that the Goblin changed after seeing her, not that it was thanks to her.

“True. You realize many things don’t matter when you realize how mortal you truly are.” Jesse couldn’t see it, but he felt as if the Goblin nodded. “Now, tell me, what do I love more than brewing?”

“Cheese.”

“Ahahahaha!” the Goblin started to laugh heartily, materializing out of thin air in front of Jesse, on one of the stumps. He was a middle-aged man, close to his 50s, if the grey hairs in his long beard and hair were of any indication. “Well, hello there!” he said, with a giant grin. “I don’t get many visitors these days, I’m Ivor, a pleasure to have meet you, hehe.”

“Um, hi?” Jesse started awkwardly. “It’s a pleasure to have meet you too? I’m… Jesse.”

“Come come, I have dinner ready.” Ivor disappeared, simply disappeared from Jesse’s view, and by the time he was looking for him, Jesse found himself sitting on one of the stumps with a bowl of stew.

“What the…” Jesse murmured, panic building in his chest as he tried to understand what happened.

“Aaah, pardon me.” Ivor chuckled weakly. “I should have asked you first if you’d like a seat before whisking you away like that.”

“You… You did that?”

“Ah, yes! One of my special brews! You never know when you need to move around quickly.” Jesse heard Ivor before the man himself appeared on a stump parallel to him, he too having a bowl of stew in hand. “Ahhh, nothing like a good stew for dinner.” He took a spoonful of stew. “Don’t be shy, the stew will get cold.”

“It’s… midday by now?” Jesse said weakly, taking a spoonful of stew too. It… was actually quite good! But he won’t lie when he says that the stew tasted more of cheese rather than the meat or the vegetables it was made of.

“It’s dinner time somewhere.” Ivor shrugged. “So, what takes you here, son? You’re a Hunter too I presume?” Jesse nearly choked on his stew. “Few people come here anymore, all of them Hunters. And the occasional office drone, but they are usually eaten by the fireflies.”

“The fireflies?!” The same fireflies he passed by while he came here?

“Oh yes, they can be quite veracious when hungry.” Ivor nodded. “Still, you didn’t answer me, why did you come here?” Ivor said, in a low voice, staring Jesse down.

“I…” What should he say? Ivor already knew that he was a Hunter. “I came to the graveyard.” Jesse sighed. “I thought maybe I could get some clues out of the mausoleum or something like that.”

“Ah, I see.” Ivor nodded, taking another spoon of stew. “I’m afraid I can’t help you much there. I knew João back when he was alive, not so much in death.”

“You knew the founder?”

“Knew him?” Ivor let out a bitter laugh. “We were partners here! Me, him and Harper, we were the top minds of SintraCorp. Me and Harper took care of R&D part of the company, while Joao was dealing with the business side.” Ivor sighed and shook his head. “And then greed took the best of him. Me and Harper were given less and less credit, while his company grew. Not even his daughter could bring him back, although it wouldn’t surprise me if she was influenced by him too.”

“You mentioned someone named Harper?” Jesse said, taking each word in. “I have a friend who worked with Harper, but she told me she disappeared…”

“Ah, Harper. I feared that this might come one day…” Ivor murmured. “You heard the stories around here, that I saw the Witch.” Swallowing the knot in his throat, Jesse nodded. “She knew I was thirsting for revenge, angry at João’s greed, at him taking credit from me and Harper. I was ready to bring this company to the ground, just to show the world what kind of man he was.” Ivor sighed. “Then, Rei disappeared.”

“Wait, she disappeared? I heard that she died.”

“Nobody truly knew what happened. But after that, the company started going down, losing more and more money.” Ivor shook his head. “I was more than happy about that. That’s what you deserve, João, that’s what I was thinking. Then, everything started climbing back up, but João was never the same. He looked empty, like all life has left his body.”

“Empty? What happened to him?”

“I don’t know. The official story was that Rei was found. She was found dead.”

“Oh…”

“However, I didn’t fully believe that story. It was too sudden, the announcement was short and curt. João and Xiu decided to do a quiet funeral and continue with their lives. If Rei truly died, there was more to her death than what João and Xiu wanted to show.” Ivor breathed in deeply. “However, I still wasn’t done with João, I still wanted to make him pay. Harper stopped me from going into the deep end, but that didn’t mean I wanted to stop. Then, the Curse started, taking João as its first victim.”

“Wait, what?”

“That was just the start. It looked like an accident, at first. Then more and more senior employees died from freak accidents. That was when I saw Her. She wanted to play, to have her fun torturing me, killing my colleagues while leaving me alive. My thirst for revenge slowly got weaker, seeing that it was of no use. João was dead, the company was cursed, one day I will die too. And then, the 8th time I saw Her, She whispered something to me, something I will never forget.”

“She spoke to you?”

“Yes.  _ Isn’t this what you wanted?  _ She whispered to me, in that soft, velvety whisper. I don’t remember anything after that, except that I ran and ran, never once looking back.” Ivor took a few more spoons of stew, finishing his bowl. “Then, I decided to set up camp here, away from all the corporate business and live the rest of my days here.” Ivor raised himself from his stump, grunting as his bones creaked, to take a second serving of stew from the pot. “Want more? I’ve got more than enough, don’t worry.”

Only now had Jesse realized that he ate his entire bowl of stew while listening to Ivor talk.

“Actually,” he started, Ivor breaking into a grin, “I don’t think I’ll take one.” Ivor thinned his lips in disappointment.

“It’s alright then, son. Feel free to come here again if you need some help – Oh, wait! Actually, since you’re a Hunter, you’re gonna need some help. And lucky for you, I do have some stuff prepared.” Ivor disappeared for a moment, reappearing with a glass vial filled with some murky green liquid. “Her, this will help you breath in the poison gas that permeates this building.”

Jesse thinned his lips, remembering the green haze that was in the southern parts of the fourth floor. He didn’t hesitate in taking the vial, feeling the cold glass pressed against his skin, and putting it in his dress jacket pocket.

“Thank you.”

“Ah, don’t thank me, I’d always help a Hunter.” Ivor sighed. “This company has been a festering corpse for far too long. Even before the Curse started. Do what you think is best so that the company would finally die for good or so it could start anew.”

Jesse looked at Ivor with an unreadable expression. He still held some hope.

Jesse nodded and raised himself from his stump.

“I’ll do what I can.” Jesse said, handing his bowl back to Ivor. “I don’t presume you know where this vent goes?” Jesse pointed towards the vent on the wall.

“Ah, no. Well, not exactly. I know it goes to a lower floor, but not which one.”

“Hmmm,” Jesse murmured, coming closer to the vent. Someone mentioned something about a vent once. Was it Nell, maybe? Something about a vent going down to the fifth floor.

Well, one way to find out where this vent took him.

One by one, each of the screws were loosened by his screwdriver, the vent itself coming off quite easily afterwards. Now, time to go down.

“Thank you for coming!” Jesse heard Ivor calling back after him. “Hope to see you soon!”

“Sure! See you too another time, Ivor!” He called back, and with that, Jesse entered the vent.


	19. Red Like the Devil's Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw: For mentions of death, demonic imagery and violence/blood

For how cramped, dark and dusty the vent was, Jesse found its end quite quickly. It didn’t take long for Jesse to kick open the cover of the vent, him finding himself in the dark corner of the fifth floor bathroom. Slowly and awkwardly positioning himself so his feet would go first, Jesse exited the vent, using the toilet as a stepping stone.

Well, whoever told him that the vent here took him from and to the eighth floor was right. Was it Nell? Jesse was pretty sure it was Nell.

But, as much as he wanted to stay and think of something other than his task, Jesse came here for a reason. Or at least that’s what he thinks. He didn’t actually know what to do after finding the graveyard closed and finding Ivor in the forest.

Oh, yeah, he could tell her about the graveyard being locked, that’s a start.

That and he should leave the stall. It was dark and the floor was wet. He didn’t trust this company to not throw something at him from the dark toilet.

Jesse pushed the stall door, but he found it resisting.

Maybe it was a pull type door?

Jesse tried pulling it, but he still couldn’t move it from its spot.

“Hmmm…” he murmured, turning on his flashlight and pointing it at the door lock.

Ah, he should have expected this from the start. The stall door was locked. Shrugging, Jesse unlocked the door and exited the stall, nearly slipping on the puddle in front of him. Even better than that, there were janitor supplies not even a couple of meters away from the puddle.

And with a sigh, Jesse exited the bathroom, going back to his office.

\---

This time, there was someone in the Office E. It was Axel, slowly sipping his coffee while looking at nothing in particular. However, the moment Jesse closed the door behind him, Axel flinched, stood straight and turned towards him with a forced smile on his face. A smile that was quickly replaced with a sigh and a more genuine smile.

“Oh, hi, Jesse.” He said. “How’s work going?”

Jesse couldn’t help but sigh.

“Well, what can I say.” Jesse started. “SyntraCorp is full of surprises.”

Axel chuckled bitterly.

“You could say it like that, not gonna lie.” Axel took a sip of his coffee, then shook his head. “I mean, dude, I might stay just here and in the cafeteria, but I’ve heard more than enough stories to hear what workers like you deal with.”

“Um, workers like me?” Slip of the tongue, maybe?

“Yeah, you know here to deal with the – Oh…” At Jesse’s unimpressed look, Axel realized what he had just said out loud.

“It’s alright.” Jesse said with a sigh. “I trust you, Axel. Well, except this slip of the tongue, but you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, sorry, dude…” he said, while scratching the back of his head. “But I’ve seen so many Hun – uhh, workers come and go. And you’re, like, already above average in your job and in your company, not many have managed to live long here past the first day.”

“I know, I know…”

“And not as if the one that do manage to live get to go home.”

“Yeah, I also found out myself that the hard way…” Jesse thinned his lips. “There really is no other way to get out of here? Like a basement or something?” Axel shook his head.

“Nope, whoever decided to make this building back when it was an apartment block decided it didn’t need a basement.” Axel shrugged. “And to answer your first question, no, there really isn’t a way to escape. Unless you consider the quick way down from the roof as a way to escape this nightmare.”

“Ah, I see.” Jesse said, while shaking his head. “Or stopping the Curse.”

Axel inhaled sharply.

“I… No offense, dude, but nobody managed to get to Her. Not even the three great wizards or whatever Nell called them.” Jesse simply thinned his lips, his forehead creasing. “I’m… sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Jesse said. “I’m the one that still goes on, despite all signs telling me that I should stop.” He went past Axel towards the ancient computer. “You said it yourself, I’m already above average in my line of work, might as well see how far I can go.” Jesse pulled his card out and he nearly inserted it into the card reader when he heard Axel call out for him.

“I’ll be having my fingers crossed you, man.” Jesse turned back to give Axel a sad smile. “Thanks, Jesse…”

And with that, Jesse inserted the card and allowed his mind to enter the SintraNet.

\---

Finding it again empty.

Well, to be honest, he wasn’t surprised. Last time he entered, Sintra was in the virtual library, in the middle of scanning the Hexxenhammer. A process he took her away from to share what he had found on the fourth floor. Wouldn’t surprise him if she went back there to finish the scan.

Only to find the virtual library empty of the AI.

The book was still being scanned, but there was no one there to read it. Nobody between the shelves, nobody near the pixelated water fountain, nobody even near the empty picture frame with the plaque of “Devil’s Blood”. Although, the last one didn’t surprise him all that much. Just standing near the “Devil’s Blood made Jesse feel… weird. He couldn’t find any other way to explain it.

But, in the end, the answer was the same, the library was empty.

And with that knowledge in mind, Jesse left the library and went to the other side of the chamber, where the swing was located, hoping that maybe Sintra was there. But just like with the library before him, the swing stood still, the AI nowhere to be seen.

Only when he went back to the main chamber, pointing his flashlight left and right, hoping to find something, had Jesse found a new door in the green pixels that made up this room.

Entering the hall, Jesse finally found Sintra, but not in any way he would have even expected.

Slowly blinking, Jesse looked left and right to see if what he saw was real. Jesse was in what could be said to be an inside swimming pool. The pool was supposed to be circular, but the giant pixels it was made from only left the vaguest impression of being circular. Next to it were two pool chairs with a small table between them, on it a single green, transparent glass holding a red liquid.

And that was just the swimming pool itself.

They didn’t compare to the wall next to him.

As a start, the wall was decorated with a mural of a tropical beach, something just like the holiday flyers he found on the fourth floor. Golden sands, azure waters, two palm trees at each side of the mural.

However, the statues were another story entirely.

One was a pixelated version of Venus de Milo, a giant, bright red gash running down her middle, starting from the top of her head ending down at her feet.

And the second was of a bright red man with a pair of horns bursting out of his head, curling upwards. Just looking at him made Jesse feel uneasy. The statue of the Devil wasn’t even pointed towards him, but Jesse still felt like it was looking at him.

All left was the inside of the pool itself.

Bright red, yet still transparent. That’s how Jesse could describe the liquid Sintra was swimming in with no worry in life.

“Sintra?” Jesse called out at the AI swimming in the poll of what he hoped it was red water.

“Oh! Hi Jesse!” She called out back to him, with emotion he had never seen before in her. “Wanna join in? The water is great!”

“Uh,” he said, not sure how to react to this. “Um, no, thank you? I’m not that up for a swim right now…” He had to admit, however, that was quite a weak excuse.

“Why? You scared of the water?” Sintra now changed her position so she could swim on her back and threw some water on Jesse.

“Ah!” he gasped, going back a step, but it was of no use, the water still hit him. Sintra only laughed. In response, Jesse only sighed and decided to go straight to the subject. “So, Sintra, I’ve got a problem with my task. I couldn’t enter the Graveyard, it was lock – “

“Look, Jesse, I don’t care anymore about that.”

“I… Wha – What?” Jesse managed to splutter out. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me, Jesse. You were right. All this death, all this suffering, and for what? Nobody was able to stop the Witch or her Curse. Why would you be any different, Jesse? You will be just another corpse in the bowels of the company. Just another blood bag.” She said with a calm voice, unnerving Jesse even more. “I’d suggest giving up, Jesse, as long as you have the time. The Witch might let you live.” She chuckled. “You should really take a swim, I don’t know you about you, but it reminds me of when I was on the beach with my parents. Have you ever been to the beach, Jesse?”

“I don’t think so, my parents didn't have enough money as it was before Reuben was born – Wait what?” Jesse was too shocked by her change in attitude to realize what she just said. “You said parents? You had parents?”

Sintra stood completely still in the water, the small water hitting her, but never moving her. A few pixels making up her body shifted for a split second.

Then, she swam to the ladder at the side of the pool and raised herself up. She looked at Jesse for a second then went down to sit down on one of the pool chairs.

“It doesn’t matter anymore, Jesse.” She took from the table a cocktail glass filled with a thick, red liquid, taking a small sip of it. “Want some?” she pointed to another glass, one that wasn’t there before.

“Uh, sure?” Jesse mentally berated himself, who knew what was inside of it? “Uh, what’s it called?”

“The Devil’s Blood.” She said, a few of her pixels moving.

“Aha…” He said, putting the glass back down on the table, only to remember something. “The Devil’s Blood…” He murmured, remembering the painting in the virtual library. “Can I take the glass with me?”

“Mhm.” Jesse had to do a double take. Sintra said that to him from behind a magazine with her face on it.

“Alright… Thanks, I guess?”

“Mhm.” She said again, without looking at Jesse.

Jesse couldn’t help but look back at Sintra with a raised eyebrow as he exited the pool chamber. Well, at the very least this stopped him from feeling as if the Devil Statue looked back at him when he looked at it.

And now back in the library, surrounded by silence, armed with the cocktail glass in hand, Jesse couldn’t help but feel like he was invoking something evil by using the Devil’s Blood on a painting with the same name. But, at the same time, he felt like there was something behind this black, blank canvas.

Jesse threw the contents of the glass, the glass then dissolving into pixels in his hand, onto the blank canvas. He might not know the physics of liquids, but the resulting painting sure as hell didn’t look as if he spilled a glass of red liquid.

It looked more as if someone bled on the canvas.

_ Click _

Jesse took a step back when he heard the sound, in that moment the wall holding the canvas decided to raise itself up, revealing to Jesse a dark hallway. Inspiring deeply to slow down his pulse, Jesse turned on his flashlight and entered the hallway.

The first thing that hit Jesse once he entered deep enough into the dark hallways was the noise. Ear scratching noise, a combination between ground glass and static. A sound that was getting louder and louder as he went deeper into the dark.

“The hell…” whispered Jesse, finding a book in his way.

And not just any book.

Hexxenhammer.

Jesse had a feeling this wasn’t  _ his  _ Hexxenhammer.

With this information in front of him, Jesse continued onwards, the noise getting louder and louder until Jesse couldn’t even hear his own thoughts. For a second he was afraid his eardrums had broken apart, but his ears were dry.

The hallway ended suddenly.

And opened in an enormous room.

A room filled with copies of Hexxenhammer.

Copies glitching a breaking apart in a head splitting cacophony.

But that wasn’t the only thing that made Jesse sick to the stomach. The room not only was filled with copies of Hexxenhammer, but his flashlight couldn’t even reach the other end of the room.

He knew that he wasn’t the only Hunter here. Jesse knew that many Hunters died.

But he never expected to be so many of them.

Feeling lightheaded, Jesse didn’t waste any time in leaving this graveyard behind. One thing was the words, another was the evidence.

\---

“Hey, Jesse.” Jesse let go of a breath that he didn’t know he held inside. It was Axel. “how was it?” Jesse turned to face him. “Wow, dude, you alright? You suddenly got very pale…”

“I…” Jesse shook his head. He couldn’t let the mental image of the room filled with books stop him. He wouldn’t. He shouldn’t. “Just… Doesn’t matter…” Jesse shook his head again, but the mental image wouldn’t leave him. “Hey, I’ll be in the cafeteria if you need me…”

Axel looked at Jesse with suspicion, but in the end he nodded. Jesse nodded back and exited the Office.

Just in time to see the man in the black suit and pitch-black mask with purple eyes and mouth press the button for the elevator and wait.

And, as if by some sixth sense, the man realized that he was being watched. He looked straight at his right, straight at Jesse. The mask made it hard to see his eyes, but Jesse felt that he stared at him with an unblinking expression.

_ DING _

And with that, the elevator doors opened.

Jesse could feel the man squinting under his mask.

The man entered the elevator.

Only then Jesse realized what was happening.

“Hey, wait!” Jesse called out, running after the man, managing to reach the elevator doors.

But, it was of no use. Jesse reached the elevator doors only to watch as they closed in front of him, him only managing to catch a quick glance at the other man’s back and some strands of fiery red hair that managed to escape from under the mask.

Sighing deeply, Jesse instead decided to look at the elevator lights as the elevator decided to descend.

Fifth floor, the floor it started from.

Fourth floor.

And…

No. It stopped on the fourth floor.

Huh…

Jesse waited a few more seconds and only then he pressed the button to call the elevator here.

_ DING _

Unsurprisingly, the elevator was empty.

Whoever was this person – a few words coalesced in his mind, Ender Man and red hair – he had something to do on the fourth floor. But what?

Jesse sighed.

Well, one way to find out.

Jesse pressed the fourth floor button.

\---

Jesse inhaled deeply the moment the elevator hit the fourth floor. To say that he was hesitant of entering the Hive, as the others called it, would be an understatement. After all, what if the HR Ladies were still looking for him?

Still, he couldn’t let that stop him from finding out what the Ender Man wanted to do. While on the elevator, Jesse remembered that he saw that man before, back on the seventh floor, when he was looking for the Hexxenhammer. And not only that, but many people around here knew about him.

The Ender Man wanted something with him, nothing good, unfortunately, but why?

Jesse exited the elevator.

The coast was clear, he couldn’t hear any clicking of heels or any weird chuckles. Maybe they went back to their offices? He did leave the floor and didn’t come back for a while, after all.

Even then, Jesse still was hesitant to go north, back to the area next to the HR. There were cameras all over the building, who says that someone in HR wasn’t watching the security feeds in here?

But on the other hand, there was nothing south of here, just that broken down printer and the green haze – Wait, the haze that made him sick?

Ivor’s potion!

With it he could actually get through the haze!

Well, at least that’s what he hoped it would happen.

However, for all eccentricities Ivor displayed, something in him told him that the potion would work. One way to find out –

What the hell happened here?

Jesse couldn’t help but put a hand over his mouth in shock. The way south, the one that took him to the green haze, was turned into a bloodbath, almost literally. The men here, the ones guarding the giant printer monster were dead and dismembered, their body parts strewn around.

Jesse could feel the contents of his stomach threatening to come out, but, with great effort, he managed to keep them down. This wasn’t the first time he saw corpses. And it won’t be the last either. This was just the first time he saw them fresh and still bleeding.

Stopping just a few meters away from the green haze, Jesse opened Ivor’s potion and downed the contents.

To say that it tasted vile and didn’t help his already churning stomach would be an understatement.

Yet, the effects were almost instant.

No matter how much he inhaled the green haze in front of him, Jesse felt fine. He didn’t feel any worse, he didn’t feel nauseous or lightheaded.

The gas still stunk, however.

But, at the very least, he could live with this.

Jesse had no idea how long the potions effects would hold. Inspiring deeply, he went on forwards in the green haze, hoping to find the Ender Man and not the thing that made this carnage.

Although, now that he thought about it…

Where is the giant printer?


	20. A Toxic Workplace

An interesting fact about fog is how dense it seems from the outside. After all, when seen from the outside, it fills all the possible spaces. However, the moment you enter in, your field of view isn’t as saturated, you can see further, you can see the shapes better, the colors clearer, the details once lost are now more apparent.

Unfortunately for Jesse, that meant he could much clearer see the massacre ahead of him. Body parts and split apart heads left and right. Drawing in sharp and shaky breaths to calm his twisting stomach, Jesse went on forward, past the corpses.

“Dot…Dot...Dot…” murmured a barely alive man, blood still spilling from where his arm once was. “Dot…Dot…Dot…Dooooo…” and with that he expired his last breath.

Jesse shook his head with a sad sigh. Another victim of SintraCorp. His mind too lost to understand what happened to him. Jesse’s stomach churned again. How many of these workers knew or cared what happened to them? Could they even be saved when the Curse will be broken?

Jesse shuddered. He remembered how empty the eye of the office drones in this building looked.

But for all that it mattered, Jesse hoped that the answer to that question would be yes.

\---

Jesse had to admit, this part of the Fourth Floor was like a maze, with twisting corners and dead ends. He was pretty sure he could jump over a few of the cubicle walls, but he had no idea where to go and if he could find his way back.

“Woah” Jesse called out as he felt his foot catch up on something, nearly making him fall flat on his face

A cable?

A thick blue cable running from one end of the cubicle hallway to the other. And more than that, the cable seemed to be connected to a desk. Not to a computer or anything like that, but to the desk itself.

Odd, but nothing he would consider surprising in this company. This gave him an idea, if this end of the cable was connected to the desk, then where did the other end go?

Apparently, to a cubicle with a single, big blue button and a corpse with a worryingly green skin tone. carefully stepping over the corpse, Jesse inched closer to the button, assuring himself in the meantime that yes, there are no other apparent dangers to the button, and pressed it.

Immediately Jesse heard the sound of something mechanical moving.

And shortly afterwards, the gurgling groans of the body on the ground. Well, looks like it wasn’t a corpse after all.

Jesse slowly turned back to see the man raising himself from off the ground, looking around left and right in a barely present confusion. Another wet gurgle escaped his mouth, bright green saliva escaping through his open lips.

Saliva that burned through the floor the moment it landed on it.

The man looked straight at Jesse with an empty stare.

Jesse sidestepped the man, hoping that by getting out of this worker's field of vision will hopefully end with him not spit upon or ending in any shape or form in contact with that saliva.

Leaving the man behind, Jesse went back to his original position, where he nearly slipped because of the cable. Now, the cubicle left of him went backwards and entered some kind of alcove, now leaving Jesse way to enter deeper into this floor. Or, as the other called it and he himself could see why it was called like that, deeper into the Hive.

\---

Jesse had to say, for all the endless clicking, for all the people working mindlessly at their computers, not even raising an eye at his presence, the Hive felt empty. He hasn’t seen a single wandering worker ever since he entered this green haze.

Well, except the green skinned man, but Jesse wasn’t sure if that worker was alive, barely alive or a walking dead, which in this company, these descriptions do overlap quite a lot.

Jesse thought while crawling underneath another desk, ending up to another dead end. Well, maybe not a dead end. Another button like that one in the cubicle with the green skinned man. Well, here goes nothing, Jesse thought while pressing the button.

Compared to his expectations, the button didn’t open the way in front, it opened a way to his right, the cubicle retracting then entering a space to its right. And it that out of the way, Jesse could continue onwards.

Onwards into what seemed like someone’s old hiding spot. If he could call it a hiding spot, it looked more like someone's base of operations.

To say that it was a mess would be an understatement. Books and papers thrown around, wine bottles and soda cans everywhere, boxes upon boxes upon boxes stuffed until they could barely stay in one piece. But, compared to what he saw in the other parts of the building, this was an organized mess, if he could call it like that. This was someone’s mess.

However, more than that, it was the objects that adorned the already existing mess that caught his eye.

Jars filled with ingredients, starting from jars filled with dusts, still green leaves, even eyes. And, some kind of talismans, not the kind you’ll see in movies, handmade talismans, pointed towards the outside of the hiding spot, some of them having familiar shapes, like a rhombus with a smaller rhombus in the middle, reminding him of an eye.

Well, it was someone’s mess once, from the layer of dust blanketing the entire hiding spot, nobody was here in quite a while.

Still, Jesse couldn’t help but feel like he could maybe find something useful around these parts, among the magical ingredients and talismans. Well, not that he would know how to use any of this magic stuff, but maybe some kind of information about the things happening in this company.

“Romeo,” Jesse read aloud one of the letters he found on the ground. “I don't know what you think. That guy, your little EnderMan, I feel like he would bring only problems. I know you’re looking for an apprentice, but I would recommend someone else. Xara.”

The EnderMan… Whoever was he, he was here for longer than he imagined.

“My friend.” Jesse read from another letter. “I suggest we make haste towards ending the curse plaguing this company. Now with the Dagger in your possession, we can quickly end Her and Her curse once and for all. I shall be in the Library for the last moment preparations, I assume our plan of starting from the second floor are still in order? Signed, Fred.”

The Dagger? They got the Athame Dagger? Jesse thinned his lips. This was how many years ago? Who knows where the Dagger had ended now? Or in whose hands.

The last letter Jesse found couldn’t be really considered a letter, more like the frantic thoughts someone wanted to send, but couldn’t.

Oh.

“Can’t talk anymore right now, guys, without attracting Her attention. She caught up to me. She caught up to us. I have no idea where the little EnderMan is. Guys, I suggest you go in hiding until the coast is clear. I will try to hide the Dagger in my personal office. You know the code. Good – “and the letter stops here.

This must’ve been Romeo’s handwriting. And by extension, his hiding place.

Jesse swallowed the knot formed in his throat, self-doubt creeping at the back of his mind.

Romeo was said to be one of the three greatest magic users hired by the company.

And he died without ending the curse.

What chance did he have?

Jesse shook his head, trying to throw this thought away. No, he’s been through this once or twice, he had friends and workers to save, he had his family back home waiting for him. He can’t fail… he can’t fail them. He’s gotten so far, he’s found so much of the former Hunters, he could do it, he can do it.

All he had to do was to find the Dagger and end the Curse.

And he couldn’t do that if he stayed on the spot and mopped. He needed to move forward.

But how? This too was a dead end. And the only button that could move the cubicle opened this. Romeo had to have a way out of this place, like a button or a secret door or something alongside those lines. All that he had to do was to find it in this mess.

Jesse sighed and began his search.

\---

Surprisingly enough, it didn’t take that long for him to find a button in this mess. After all, it wasn’t truly hidden, it was simply behind a stack of paper filled boxes. Which, luckily for him, were factually quite light, taking Jesse no time at all to remove them and for him to press the button.

A new cubicle moved away from him, opening a new way.

A way that took him into a livelier part of the Hive, with people moving, more open desks and filing cabinets peppering the more open spaces he just entered.

Where to go now?

The people might be wandering about, but they still ignored Jesse. Same with the desk workers, still typing away in the computers, never once taking their eyes away from the screen or even blinking.

All that he had in sight were dark and empty corridors.

Or a corridor with three dots painted in blood, repeating thrice..

“Dot… Dot… Dot…” Jesse said, heart dropping in his stomach. Now he understood..

Dot Matrix.

The printer he saw earlier in the part of the Hive with the clearer air. The printer that disappeared and left a massacre behind it. The printer that Petra warned him to never get close to, to never deal with.

But this reminded him of something else.

It was the EnderMan that activated the printer. And he never saw him leave the floor either.

This could mean two things.

One, the EnderMan hid somewhere and Jesse went on here for no reason at all.

Two, the EnderMan hid here and he’s the one that activated the Dot Matrix.

Both of them had their points, but he felt like the second one had something more to it. After all, the Dot Matrix began its massacre after the EnderMan entered the fourth floor. Maybe if he followed the dots he could find the EnderMan and maybe stop the Dot Matrix along the way?

Or at least that’s what he hoped.

Although his heart started to beat at an alarming rate, although he felt like he was going into a certain death, Jesse went on forward through the corridor with the dots painted in blood.

\---

The hallway Jesse took ended in another dead end, another cubicle with a worker working tirelessly at a computer. Another cubicle that could be moved, if the blue button next to it was of any indication.

And, not surprisingly, Jesse was right. The cubicle moved on forwards and to the right, leaving Jesse free to enter a new chamber bordered by the back of many cubicles. A large heap of tables, filing cabinets and just plain shelves decorated in the middle of the chamber, while around the borders were the occasional table tables, filing cabinets and a large metal closet.

But those were forgotten the moment Jesse caught the glimpse of the Dot Matrix itself in the middle of it all, next to the heap of random office furniture, in what could be called a nest of cables going to and fro weird circuit boards on the floor.

Jesse swallowed the knot formed in his throat. He could hear soft machinery whirring inside the monster machine, but as far as he knew, it was asleep. Or the closest thing a machine like that could use as sleep.

Jesse heard a cough.

It didn’t come from behind him or his left or right, it came from deeper into the Dot Matrix’s lair. Tip toeing inside, getting past the Dot Matrix and its mountain of furniture, Jesse finally reached the source of the coughing. It was the closet hidden in the far corner of the chamber.

Slowly, looking back to be sure he hasn’t activated the Dot Matrix by accident, Jesse opened the doors

Only to throw them open in shock when he found out who was inside.

“Olivia!?” he whisper shouted. “What are you doing here?” Jesse inspired sharply, seeing how ashen and almost green her skin was. “Crap crap crap, I don’t have anymore potions!”

“Jesse…?” she asked, opening an eye, only to cough.

“Yeah, it’s me, Olivia!” Jesse looked left and right, but the only way out was through the way he came. “Don’t worry, we’ll – we’ll get out of here, I promise!”

“Jesse… Don’t… “Olivia breathed deeply and in short bursts. “Don’t run…”

“Wait, what do you mean - !” Realization dawned on Jesse. “You mean Dot Matrix – “

Jesse heard a weird ghost sound coming from the exit. The same sound the EnderMan made!

“Hey!” he called out, seeing how the EnderMan pressed the blue button, him staring at Jesse, unmoving, as the cubicle slowly obstructed him from view. “Crap…” he was stuck here. Stuck with Dot Matrix.

There had to be a second way here. There had to be some way for him and for Olivia to escape.

“Olivia…” he called back to the woman. “I’m gonna… I’m gonna look for a way out. Hang tight alright?” Jesse looked back at Olivia, she was barely listening to him, eyes closed, breaths becoming shallower and shallower. Even then, she made the slightest of nods, she did hear him after all.

Alright, now all left was to find a way out of here. A way out of this poisonous green haze around them.

Too bad that the universe decided to make his work harder.

Jesse could feel his blood freezing in his veins.

The sound of a printer activating was unmistakable.

Jesse had to fight his instincts to run away from danger.

Don’t run.

Jesse inspired deeply and began his slow walk away from Olivia. It was one thing for the printer to get him, but he didn’t want Olivia to get caught in the crossfire.

And as he passed the furniture heap, Jesse saw that the nest of Dot Matrix wasn’t empty. It had some kind of rectangular object. Only by pointing his flashlight at it, Jesse found out what it was.

It was a button.

Just like the ones he saw before in his journey here.

Jesse picked it up and froze like a deer in the headlights. The sounds of fingers tapping on the cold concrete floor returned.

Run, all of his instincts called out to him. Don’t run, said his brain, using all its powers to stop his muscles from moving by their own.

And there he saw it, Dot Matrix in all his glory. An almost gleaming white and grey printer, much larger than the office printer he had in his office, atop four giant human hands, moving in unison to move on forward like some kind of spider.

The printer stopped dead in its track and moved its fingers so it could look around. It looked left, it saw nothing. It looked right, it saw Jesse. It stared at Jesse, it stared and stared at Jesse, as it was waiting for Jesse to make that one mistake, to move that one muscle. It waited to pounce.

A pounce that never came.

Dot Matrix turned away on its fingers and continued onwards to wander around in its lair.

Jesse finally released the breath he held so long that his lungs started to burn.

The button.

Yeah, he held the button in his hand. Just like the ones from before.

And the open circuit board on the floor! They had to go somewhere!

But where?

A few cables ended up here, but they are tangled to hell and back.

However, some do seem to move away from the nest pile he was in.

And seemed to converge at a random cubicle on the wall opposite of the nest, somewhere north. Maybe some of the circuit board here could move the cubicle? There were a few circuit boards near him, it couldn’t hurt to try.

Walking slowly, making sure that his shoes didn’t make any sound of the floor, Jesse came to his first circuit board.

He placed the button on it, the button fitting perfectly, and pressed it.

Nothing.

Cursing under his breath, Jesse moved to the next circuit board.

This time he heard the unmistakable sound of machinery getting moved.

And apparently so did the Dot Matrix, it immediately rushing towards the source of the sound.

Jesse moved quickly, towards the next circuit board.

Nothing.

The Dot Matrix moved on forwards, finding nothing worth its interest.

If Jesse thought right, by how he heard the Dot Matrix move, he was about half a room away from it. And if he continued on like that, he could keep that advantage until he could move the cubicle far enough so he and Olivia could escape.

The fourth circuit board was a bust. So was the fifth.

But the sixth turned out to be the correct one too.

Jesse hid underneath one of the tables as the Dot Matrix came from ahead of him to check out the sound.

This time it stood a bit more near the cubicle, looking attentively to see if it could find something, anything. But no, it didn’t find a single thing.

With that explored, the Dot Matrix continued its usual wandering, coming uncomfortable close to Jesse.

To which Jesse moved further back, his head raised enough to hit the metal bars of support from underneath the table.

Making a loud sound.

And alerting the Dot Matrix.

Jesse stood as still as he could as the giant hand of the printer searched underneath the table for him. He was far away enough from it, it was too big, it couldn’t get close enough to actually catch him. However, its giant hand was close enough to almost touch his face, the middle finger coming millimeters too close to touching his nose.

And it realized that too.

The Dot Matrix retracted its hand.

It took a step backwards.

Only to open a hatch on its front part.

Releasing a foul smelling liquid that started to eat through the floor.

Jesse, as quietly as possible, went as back as possible from the liquid, hoping that there was enough space for him, space far away from the liquid as possible.

Luckily for him, in that moment, the Dot Matrix thought it was more than enough liquid and continued its way onwards.

Jesse stood as far away as possible from the liquid, watching closely how it bubbled and released vapors, slowly but surely depleting itself as it ate the floor.

It took a second rotation of the Dot Matrix until there was no more liquid on the floor and Jesse could continue his task of finding what circuit board could open the way out of here.

The seventh was a bust. So was the eighth and ninth.

The tenth was the one that finally opened the way forwards. This was the longest of them all. And this was the last circuit board anyways.

Waiting for the Dot Matrix to check the way, Jesse peeked in the dark hallway. It didn’t look that long, but he couldn’t see the end of it. It was just him or was the fog thicker in there? Thicker than the whole Hive, if he stood and thought about it.

Jesse shook his head and stood glued to the wall as the Dot Matrix passed him by, coming, again, uncomfortably close for comfort.

After it left, Jesse moved on into the hallway. He had to check it out before he could pull Olivia with him. Last thing he wanted was to bring her to a dead end, somewhere where the Dot Matrix could hunt them with impunity.

“No no no…” Jesse whispered as he came to the end of the hallway.

At the end of the hallway was a veritable cave. And even worse than that, from this cave of concrete, office furniture and cables, the fog was the strongest. Not, it wasn’t just the strongest, it emanated from this place.

No no, even if this was the way out, he couldn’t bring Olivia here. He was protected by the potion, he could maybe venture there, but Olivia barely breathed in this very moment.

He has to turn back, he has to find another way out.

And he did, he really did turn back.

Only to come face to face with the Dot Matrix. The Dot Matrix rushing at him.

This time, Jesse listened to his instincts and ran away.

Ran away to the only place he thought could be safe from the Dot Matrix.

Jesse ran away to the cave.

\---

Jesse didn’t know how much he could stay here.

The cave was tiny, filled with holes, pieces of concrete reaching the cave’s ceiling and decaying corpses. Too small to hide forever.

But not small enough for the Dot Matrix to prowl around searching for him.

Maybe, just maybe, if he moved just at the right time, he could exit the cave and go back the way he came. Olivia was waiting for him.

The Dot Matrix passed him.

Now.

Jesse raised himself up, his back hitting something.

Out of instinct, he looked back.

The corpse looked back at him, its jaw so decayed it’s ready to fall off and its eye hanging from the socket, the nerve being the only thing that held it connected to the skull.

Jesse couldn’t help but scream in fright and take a step back.

Alerting the Dot Matrix, who came full force towards Jesse.

Here, the floor broken and cracked, was already on its last legs.

Once the Dot Matrix stepped on it, it was all over.

Jesse and the Dot Matrix fell in the dark abyss, the thick green fog swallowing them.

  
  



	21. A Deep Clean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lyrics in itallic belong to Voice (Prelude) from the Yuppie Psycho OST.

Jesse walked on forward in this dark, empty void, his flashlight on, the light revealing nothing. He didn’t know where he was, why he was here, why he had to walk. All he knew was that he needed to walk on forward

A sound made him stop dead in his tracks. The soft sound of bells.

Jesse turned towards the sound, as saw her, a little girl in a red dress, no older than 10, running around.

“Rei?” He didn’t even know why he said her name, but somehow he knew that the little girl was Rei Sintra.

Jesse changed his direction, this time towards Rei.

As he came closer, he saw that there was something… off about her. She seemed pale, not just her skin, more as if colors washed out of her. 

Rei stopped suddenly, turning towards Jesse, blood red eyes with slit pupils staring back at him. She tilted her head to one side, watching him with childish curiosity. 

For a moment, Rei glitched out like.

“Why do you look like the Devil, Jesse?”

When he heard the music, a soft beautiful voice singing from somewhere the void, Jesse turned his head away in the search of the source, more of out of reflex than anything else.

_ The White Witch, _

_ welled in a mountain _

_ Watching a lost soul _

_ take from her fountain _

_ She swore by fang and skin, _

_ tooth and nail, wicked spell _

_ That all would hide and wail, _

_ and share the tale of blood and Hell _

When he looked back, Rei was nowhere to be seen. Her place being taken by a peculiar sound. The sound of liquid hitting a hard surface.

No matter where he looked, left, right and behind, he couldn’t find a source for the sound, around him was only the endless void.

However, when he looked back ahead, that’s when he found it.

_ I saw the sun rise _

_ with stars that burned bright _

_ into a red sky _

_ I heard a voice cry _

_ in search of new light _

_ Maybe an old lie _

They were there.

Axel, Olivia, Petra, Nell, two on the right, two on the left.

Their heads cut off and neatly held in their hands, still alive, while drops of blood fell from where their necks stumps.

And in front of him, with his back turned towards Jesse, dressed in impeccable white shirt and black pants was a man. Or, at the very least, Jesse hoped it was a man, especially now seeing the pair of deep red horns peaking above his neatly arranged black hair.

“Why should I choose you?” Jesse felt as his entire life force was sucked out of his body by those words. “Hm.”

“Have you ever been to the beach, Jesse?” from deep in the void, a child’s voice could be hear

“Huh?” It took one blink, just one, for Jesse to find himself in a different location.

A beach with golden sands, with an rich, deep blue ocean spanning for miles and two palm trees, one on each side of the beach

Standing where the water was hitting the beach was a young child in a red dress.

“Don’t you think it’s so mysterious? So many things hidden underneath.”

\---

Jesse woke up with a deep gasp, immediately coughing from the acryl taste in his mouth. Where was he? He thought groggily as he raised himself up. All he saw around was this circular grey metal wall and thick green haze all around.

And what a dream too. Jesse could only shudder, seeing all his friends like that. And that man… Who was he? Or what was he? Just when he heard him talk, Jesse felt as if his soul was ripped out of his body.

Jesse shuddered again and tried to get back on his feet, the floor moving on its own like it was wood on water.

Except the water was a thick, dark green liquid from which emanated the haze.

And the floor was Dot Matrix.

Jesse stood still like a deer in the headlights.

Dot Matrix didn’t move.

And its hands seemed to float lifelessly.

Jesse moved his foot forward. Nothing. The printer didn’t move at all. The most that could be called moving was the gentle rocking of the green liquid.

Jesse found himself hesitating to breathe easily, but a part of him celebrated still. He survived. And not only did he survive, he managed to take down the Dot Matrix too.

Now, the question was: How was he supposed to get out of here?

All around him were smooth metal walls – Wait, no, there was also a rusty, if still solid looking ladder going upwards. Maybe he could use that to escape from this pool?

Well, first he had to get there. The ladder was on the other side of the pool. And Jesse had no intention of swimming through this toxic liquid. The haze was bad enough as it is, it was so dense down here that even Ivor’s potion had trouble blocking it, he could practically taste the acrid haze around him.

Back to the first question, how could he get there? He had nothing around to row the printer’s body to the ladder and, again, he’d rather not swim.

Taking a step forward to see better what was in the pool, Jesse heard a click, just like when a button was pressed. Before he knew it, the Dot Matrix’s hands moved by itself, moving the body to the right side of the pool.

“Woah woah woah!” Jesse said, nearly falling off the printer as it moved through the liquid.

What did he press? Was he that made it move?

He hoped so. Last thing he wanted was for the printer to come back to life right here and right now.

Standing on his belly on the printer, Jesse looked at the button he accidentally pressed. Well, one of the four he pressed: Clean, Select, Out and Inject. One of these moved him right, maybe another moved him left? Or up?

Jesse pressed Select.

Bracing himself, the machine moved him up, bringing him closer to the ladder, still a bit far away to the right from it.

Thankfully enough, the journey to the ladder was a quick one, even if he pressed the wrong buttons more than a couple of times.

Taking hold of the ladder, pushing the Dot Matrix away as he pushed himself up to the ladder, Jesse raised himself up and up until he escaped the pool.

Only to find himself that pool was more of an amp description that he thought. Whoever made this pool, sure wanted to bring the atmosphere of tropical beaches here, if the faded out mural of a golden beach with deep blue ocean and two palm trees were any indication. And to complete the view, the decorum was completed by four beach chairs that have seen better days, two on each side, with a small plastic table between them, still holding old and dusty glasses and soda cans.

Wait, if this was a pool, a stagnant pool, true, but still a pool. It could still be drained, no?

And if the water goes away, so does the haze…

Olivia!

Olivia was still up there, breathing this toxic haze!

There had to be some kind of plug he could pull! Or a valve he could open! Or – Or – Anything that could drain this toxic liquid away!

Shining his flashlight left and right, Jesse didn’t hesitate to run towards the unmistakable red valve connected to a giant pipe. Inspiring deeply, Jesse grabbed the pipe and started to twist, putting all his strength into turning this valve.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!” Jesse murmured as the screech of rust on rust scratched his ears.

For a moment, Jesse felt like this task was impossible, the valve barely moving no matter how hard he tried.

Only for the rust to give away, nearly throwing Jesse off balance for how easy it became to move. Before he knew it, the valve stopped again, this time from being twisted until it was completely open.

It took a moment for the whole pool to be emptied, but from the moment the body of Dot Matrix hit the pool floor, Jesse knew that the company had one less hazard to worry about. Even now, at this very moment, Jesse could feel the air getting clearer, less thick with green haze.

Jesse looked down the pool for any remaining pool of liquid, finding none.

Instead, he found a skeleton with bones black as the night, dressed in some scrap of clothing that belonged to a grey T-Shirt and blue jeans and something shining in his ribcage, while wisps of red hair managed to survive submerged under the liquid.

_ Romeo _

Said a whisper in his mind. One of the three greatest Hunters that the company hired only to disappear without a trace. Until now.

And not only that, but there was something shining inside his ribcage, something metallic.

Jesse thinned his lips and weighed his decision.

Whatever is down there could be a clue.

Olivia still needed help.

Jesse looked around. There was no sign of any green haze in the air. The air was clear, there should be no miasma left in the building.

Sighing, Jesse went down the ladder as fast as he could, hoping to grab whatever was in the skeleton’s chest and go back to Olivia as fast he could.

Throwing a worried eye towards Dot Matrix’s corpse, Jesse crouched next to Romeo and pointed his flashlight at the dead man’s chest, the metallic, rectangular object shining in the light. Slowly, gently to not disturb the corpse, Jesse extracted the object and took a short second to look over it.

It was just another worker’s card, just like his, only made of metal and with Romeo Blanc engraved on the surface alongside his worker ID number.

To be honest, Jesse had no idea what to do with this card. Maybe he could insert it into his work computer? Wouldn’t hurt to try.

Placing the card in his jacket’s pocket, Jesse climbed the ladder out of the pool and searched around for the exit door, a door he didn’t hesitate to open once it was found.

\---

The moment Jesse exited the pool room, he was pushed aside in a giant, chaotic, aimlessly, always moving crowd of people. He couldn’t even find his bearing before he was pushed to the ground, luck and chance helping him barely dodge the hundreds pairs of feet, marching in random directions around him, from stomping him to death

Crawling to the nearest wall, taking a moment to catch his breath, Jesse took a moment to make sense of where he had ended up this time.

Whatever this floor was, it was pitch black and had its inhabitants just run around aimlessly for no reason at all. There were no desks, no computers, no filing cabinets or anything that could make it resemble an office.

Actually, now that Jesse’s flashlight shed light on some decorations, if anything, this floor looked like it belonged in an apartment building. Carpeted floors, small corner tables with potted plants that have seen better days and a brown wallpaper that went out of style more than a few decades ago.

Wait, didn’t someone say that the building was once an apartment building before SintraCorp bought it and transformed it into their headquarters? Although, that doesn’t explain why this is still the same. Or why does it have an inside pool.

However, that train of thought was interrupted by a scream.

“I can't do this anymore!” that voice sounded familiar. “Someone! Anyone! Help!”

“Aiden?” whispered Jesse to himself.

Truth to be said, his first interaction with Aiden didn’t leave Jesse with the highest opinion of Aiden. But, even then, Jesse couldn’t forgive himself if he left Aiden alone, here, alone with whatever problem he’s got.

Jesse breathed in deeply and jumped back in the chaotic currents of people that filled the floor. As much as he disliked it, Jesse pushed and pushed workers out of the way, until he reached the location of where he heard Aiden scream. A corner surprisingly empty of workers, with only a bench, a set of double doors with an intercom and Aiden there going in circles, panting and wiping his forehead of sweat.

“Aiden?” Jesse called out.

The man stopped, turning towards Jesse with a smile.

A smile that shattered away to an angry frown.

“You! What are you doing here?” Aiden took a step towards Jesse. Jesse stood his ground. “Why are you still here? I thought SintraCorp wouldn’t accept lower class like you.”

“I got a job.” Jesse said simply. “At the – “ for a moment, Jesse nearly told the truth, the tenth floor, “ – the fifth floor.” Aiden looked at Jesse with incredulous expression, only to burst into laughter.

“I’ve gotta give it to you, hick, that was a good one.”

“Wanna show you my worker ID card?” Aiden narrowed his vision at Jesse.

“Hmph, why are you here anyway?” Jesse raised an eyebrow at Aiden’s obvious change of subject.

“I heard you calling for help.” Jesse said. “And I came to help.”

“Me?! Calling for help?!” Aiden shook his head. “I would never do that. And, after all, how could a Class G worker like you being able to help me?” Jesse looked at Aiden for a long and uncomfortable moment, only to turn on his heel and go back to the crowds of workers. “Hey, where are you going?!”

“You said it yourself, you don’t need any help. Especially from a Class G worker.”

“Wait, wait! I… might need some help!”

“Really? How so?” Jesse had to admit, for how out of character Aiden made him be, he enjoyed it.

“Look! Look at this!” Aiden pointed at the crowd of ever moving workers. “Do you look like I belong here? Do you think someone of the Mercer family would belong here?”

“Um, who?” The confusion in Jesse’s voice was genuine. This time, Aiden was the one that stared at Jesse for a long and uncomfortable moment.

“Never mind.” Aiden sighed deeply, pinching the top of his nose. “Look, I can’t do this low-level work.”

“Aha.” Jesse nodded

“And I need help to get out of here.”

“You can always use the elevator.” Jesse said, his tone dry as the desert.

“No shit.” Aiden tone could out-dry Jesse’s. “And here I thought I had to use the emergency stairs. No, you stupid hick, I need to be promoted to be able to reach a higher floor. This is where I need help.” Aiden turned towards the set of double doors. “I need someone to complete the task of promoting me.”

“And that would be me, is it not?” Jesse asked.

“Ah, so you aren’t as dumb as I thought.” Aiden nodded, if a bit mockingly. “Yes, I would like to see what the task is all about and possibly complete it for me.”

“Alright.”

“Hah! I knew you would do it – “

“For a thousand credits, non-negotiable.” Jesse cut him off. Aiden looked at Jesse with a shocked expression, only for that to morph into a pleasantly surprised smirk.

“Huh. Not bad.” He nodded. “You might have what it takes to survive this company.”

_ “Oh, brother, you have no idea.” _ Jesse thought, while rolling his eyes. “Alright, I’ll come back for that in a moment.”

“Wait, what?! But you said – “

“I said that I will help you. Not when.” Jesse cut him off. “I just have something important to do first. Hopefully it won’t take too long…” Jesse murmured to himself.

“What?” Aiden called out, hearing Jesse mutter.

Unfortunately, so did Aiden's coworkers hear him call out to Jesse, all of them stopping their march and turning towards him and only him, looking through Jesse as if he didn’t even exist.

“You stopped.” A woman said simply. Jesse turned back to Aiden, the man now paler than a ghost.

“Noo… No. I didn’t… stop… I was just… resting my legs.” He said, with a weak chuckle as he restarted his aimless walk in this corner. “Do whatever you need to do as quickly as possible.” Aiden said as he made a circle around Jesse. “Otherwise, I will kill you faster than these company bastards will kill me, understood?”

Jesse only sighed and nodded. Leaving Aiden alone in the floor corner while he braved the human currents in his search for an elevator.

Looking back after him, Aiden had to admit, the kid had guts, maybe he had what it needed to survive this company.

\---

Well, that took less time than he expected. The light of the elevator numbers shining in the dark floor was like a beacon. And more than that, the workers here avoided the elevator doors, leaving Jesse more than enough breathing space to press the button and wait for the elevator to come down to him.

Why did he agree to help Aiden? He still didn’t like him.

But, even then, Jesse couldn’t live with himself if he let someone to the company’s fate when he could’ve helped somehow.

The ding of the elevator interrupted Jesse’s train of thoughts.

The elevator doors opened.

“Olivia?!” Jesse said.

And there she was, looking much better compared to how she was in Dot Matrix’s Lair. Color still has a while until it could fully fill her cheeks and she still coughed quite badly, but the worst had passed.

“Hey, Jesse…” she said weakly, a cough following soon after. “Good to see you... I only… needed some fresh air…”


End file.
